Skoolz Out!

Over the last weeks, my school has been fortunate enough to gain funding which we have put towards getting interactive whiteboards installed throughout the whole school. However, since the beginning of the year, we have been heavily focusing on the needs of today’s students, and how we need to be making their learning relevant to their lives, and the world they are going to inherit.

It has been pleasing to see the positive approach the staff have taken. They have been playing with the software and becoming more aware of various Web 2.0 applications to suit their classrooms. Now that we have the boards, coupled with a new learning management system ‘Studywiz’ about to be introduced, the need to have organised and visual resources to support the staff is vital to their success.

This has been a massive challenge for me for quite a while – how can I create a digital resources library that is going to make it easy for teachers to not only access, but even contribute to, without me having to spend hours creating images and hyperlinking? Photos and even videos will be linked via the learning management system, but I needed something that could gather all the web based resources and links I have collected over the years.

Bookmarking sites like Diigo are excellent, but they were still not exactly what I was after. I want a visual interface where I can see what the bookmark is, making it easy for the teachers and students to quickly acces what they need.

Enter ‘SimplyBox.’ I absolutely love everything about this program. The ability to capture a snapshot of a page, drag into my box and then share it as a webpage has answered all of my needs. By sharing the page publicly, other people can now contribute to the page as well.

I have now set up a page within Studywiz which links to the relevant ‘box’ of visual resources. When the class clicks on the link, they are then presented with a visual library of resources – it is so simple and easy to find what they are after. After all, we are more likely to rememeber a visual cue than a bunch of text, aren’t we?

So a massive pat on the back to the guys at ‘SimplyBox.’ You have created an amazing product that is practical and easy to use. It also looks like the guys are keen to keep improving the product, as demonstrated by their integration with other sites such as ‘Twitter.’

Check out the introduction, and get ready to be ‘Simply’ Amazed!