Tizmos.com is a web 2.0 site with a lot of potential. It’s basically a stripped down version of iGoogle in that you can post up to 8 links in a series of drop boxes. This makes your links much more visual. These links can then be categorized by key word.
To use Tizmos, you need to sign up for an account with them, which is free to use. They seem to make their money off the ads that show up on the home page. After making your account, you go out and get your 1-8 links of your choosing. Tizmos will then convert these links into thumbnails. Apparently, these thumbnails can even be updated in real time and will change accordingly. At the time of this writing, however, my thumbnails were last updated in the year 1600.
After you collect your links, it is then time to share your page with the world. You can choose from 287 web 2.0 applications, or you can keep your page all to yourself in privacy mode. Tizmos encourages you to use your new custom page as your permanent home page.
Teachers can use Tizmos to create links ahead of time for their students to browse through. I think this can be incredibly useful in a computer lab situation where you don’t want students randomly doing fruitless and useless Google searches for their favorite rappers and Twilight updates. For example, for a unit on King Arthur with my English 12 students, I created some links to historical sites, literary sites, media sites, and I even found a cool Google timeline on the Arthurian Legends. I can then have my students create presentations or products based on the links I have provided.
However, at this time, Tizmos has been experiencing some ”heavy traffic” and so it doesn’t seem to be working properly. Perhaps when all of us Full Sailors have written our reviews, Tizmos will work again.
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