Web 2.0 Tool #4 www.widgetbox.com

Web 2.0 Tool #4 www.widgetbox.com

Widgetbox.com is a site that offers an endless amount of widgets to choose from. Widgets can be added to social networks, personal

websites, public websites, schools, businesses, etc and can be used for teaching, personal goals and tasks, as well as entertainment and fun. There are two easy ways to find a cool widget. Type key words into the search menu or locate a menu on the right that provides a selection of tags to narrow down your search. Tagged topics include education, clocks, humor, fun, family, etc. The following is a summary of two different widgets that I found on wwww.widgetbox.com and their educational uses

Calorie Counter widget

This widget calculates your personal age, weight, height, and exercise pattern in order to determine your appropriate daily caloric intake. The calorie counter breaks the days eating into breakfast, lunch, dinner, and miscellaneous. Drop down menus provide a variety of foods to choose from to add to your diet. Each time you add food you have eaten the Calorie counter adds it up for you.

How can the Calorie Counter be used in education?

This tool would be a great addition to any health or physical education class. Counting calories promotes healthy eating habits. Factoring in body size along with age and exercise pattern encourages positive self-image and awareness for how the metabolism works. This is simple human physiology identifying human consumption and calorie burning. Counting calories can also be a cross curricular activity with mathematics. Adults might have fun using this widget for fun in a weight watchers program or biggest loser competition.

Karooba Endless Educational Trivia Quiz

This widget is a classic quiz game. The fun part about this game is that you first type in your age so that the questions are appropriate. The game brings you through a series of questions and scores you at the end.

How can Karooba Endless Educational Trivia be used in education?

I think this widget would be a fun addition to any class webpage. The questions are random so it would be hard to include this in a specific lesson theme. This quiz tool can be used as a fun activity to prepare for standardized testing. Today’s students have a lot of pressure to score well on standardized tests; practicing with this game could get students used to reading and answering questions quickly, answer questions on random topics, and build confidence for test taking.