Sqworl is an easy way for English Language Learner students to bookmark thumbnail images (and their related links) of sites they’re interested in.  I’m very impressed with it.

It’s very similar to Tizmos, another super-easy way for users to save thumbnail images (and links) of their favorite websites on one page. Twice a week I bring my Intermediate English class to the computer lab, and it would be an easy way for each student to identify their favorites from among the 8,000 links on my website. In addition, I can place a link to each student’s Tizmos page on my website so that the whole class can see each other’s choices.  Many students in our school who are writing their “Senior Projects” (a graduation requirement) are using Tizmos to store webpages they are using for their research.

Tizmos is extremely easy to set-up and use.  Sqworl appears even a bit easier.  It’s especially easy to create separate  “groups” of sites with tags, which could be handy for research and other tasks.  Since it also lets you grab images off the web, it’s possible for students to create categories, for example, of images around a unit of study and write descriptions.  I’m always looking for easy ways for students to use that kind of higher-order thinking skill.

I did find one problem with Sqworl, though.  While I was testing it out, I tried to save the url image of this blog.  It saved the url address, but the image it showed was the main Edublogs website.  I don’t know if similar glitches might show-up when attempting to save other sites.

I’m adding Sqworl to two “The Best…” lists:

The Best Social Bookmarking Applications For English Language Learners & Other Students

The Best Personal Home Page Creators