Cool Website Tools

During the past week, I have been exposed to some pretty cool website tools.  I have already used a slideshow, which allowed me to have rotating book covers with links.  Here are some other ideas that I've gotten from other sites that I found and those that were shared by others.

• Symbaloo, http://www.symbaloo.com/home/mix/13eOcK1fiV, allows you to make a grouping of icons linking to your favorite websites, and display them attractively on your website, or other location.  I hope to be able to use this on my tech tools page, so patrons can link to all of the amazing gadgets that are available.
• Shelfari, http://www.shelfari.com/, is a "virtual bookshelf" made possible by Amazon, for the purpose of selling books.  It makes an attractive display of book covers for a website, and allows you to connect to information about each book featured.  It also has a social feature, so I'm not sure if my personal shelfari could safely be added to my page, but I plan on looking into it.
• Wonderopolis, http://wonderopolis.org/home, allows you to add a nice widget to your page, so kids can connect to the site, and find the answers to things that wonder about, like "why do dogs bark during thunderstorms?"  This is wonderful, random trivia!
• One website, http://halekulalibrary.weebly.com/, allowed students to participate in several activities interactively.  Students were asked to record a reading of their poem through flipgrip, http://flipgrid.com/info/.  This too might be worth exploring.  This site also asked students to participate in an answer garden, and displayed the results.  Finally, it connected to a blog page within the site, which allowed students and others to comment on posts.  I hope to add at least one interactive element to my page.