SymbalooEDU Lesson Plans

TeachNet had a post in the recent past detailing the merits of Symbaloo for web bookmarking i.e. creating and sharing collections of web resources using ‘webmixes’. Since then the Symbaloo team have created a suite dedicated to education available at SymbalooEDU with added features to create personalised lessons for students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkKtUykGM3I

Symbaloo Lesson Plans can be used to ‘create a gaming-style virtual lesson plan’ for students. There are options for free usage and additional features should a school wish to subscribe to these. There is plenty to get started on the free version. If you do wish to expand the usage and link SymbalooEDU to your school domain in time, the subscription rates are very reasonable.

SymbalooEDU Learning Path showing progress

SymbalooEDU is accessed via a web application and accessed using any standard web browser. Some might say that the learning paths created in the Lesson Plan area bring the idea of web quests into the 21st Century. Teachers create a path using a mix of content for students to move through sequentially interacting with a variety of content types along the way. Students can easily see the distance they’ve travelled in their learning on a particular topic and how to continue towards the end goal. Students cannot skip steps on the path and teachers can add in other content around a point on the path for students who may need additional learning content.

Content can include:

• teacher instruction by simply adding text,
• a variety of question types including multiple choice and short answer),
• webpages (which are opened within Symbaloo without students being redirected),
• videos
• articles
• files (attach a file by uploading it to the lesson path)
• embeddable content using embed code
• drawings (using an inbuilt drawing canvas)
• maths equations (using inbuilt maths equation editor)

Once the plan is created a 5-digit code is shared with students to be entered on lessonplans.symbaloo.com allowing them to join and begin with the lesson plan. If necessary, a time limit for when the plan must be completed by can be set.

Teachers can check in to see students’ progression along the lesson using the built-in analytics tools which gather data such as the length of time a student was working on a step or what questions were often answered incorrectly. There is also a built-in grading tool allowing teachers evaluate and archive results from multiple lesson plans.