Comparing Virtual Spaces for Curation

Showcasing student work is a vital part of the content creation process. I’m constantly looking for the easiest way to curate examples or have students submit work without having to login to yet another account. My usual go-to tool is Padlet, however, sometimes it does not play nice with some of the tools I work with. Here is a specific example:

Screenshot of Voki uploaded to Padlet.

Screenshot of Voki uploaded to Padlet.

Recently, Sherry Philippus, librarian at Northwood Elementary, had her 4th grade students create Vokis on Lone Star Legends. She needed a way to embed them all in one place, but Padlet would not embed or link to the original Voki. Bindrs is a website I discovered about a year ago when looking for a way to curate Thinglinks along with a written description for each example. When I tested embedding a Voki in a Bindr, it worked perfectly! I’m including a quick video showing how to make it work. You need to make sure to check the box that says               Use HTTPS to embed in a secure page.”

Voki and Bindrs

It would be wonderful if there were that one perfect tool that was compatible with all online platforms, but alas, it still eludes me. Here are the ones I use on a regular basis along with some comparisons of what I think are the most important features and examples. Hopefully this will help you match the perfect tool with your project.

Some additional information on the chart above:

  1. Logging in for elementary students can be very time consuming and distract from the content of the lesson. If a website does not offer the ability to sign in with their district Google account, it’s a deal breaker for me. I say move on and find something else.
  2. HSTRY, one of my most favorite sites ever, has new features in development. Here is what Thomas Ketchell shared with me the other day, “We will have collaboration integrated by the beginning of the next school year and hopefully the embedding of other content will be ready sooner than that over the next couple of months. You will be able to embed iframes and resources such as Thinglinks and Google Slides to a timeline!” I’m a happy girl.
  3. I included uploading files in my chart, however, with GAFE (Google Apps for Education) this feature may not be as necessary as some of the others. 
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