Sproutbuilder is a platform that enables you to make your own flash widgets without knowing a scrap of code. It has an easy-to-use interface that enables you to drag, drop, resize, copy and paste elements on to your project, which can be any size from a micro button to a full webpage. These elements include buttons, text, shapes, images, audio, video (including Youtube clips), RSS feeds, Google forms, Polldaddy polls and more. Whats more, you can embed the sprouts just about anywhere: wikis, blogs (of course) Moodles, Facebook, Myspace, Netvibes etc. or just email them.
When it launched earlier this year I had a play around with it but didn't really have much of a purpose in mind when making my own sprouts. However, I started incorporating them into my wikis: Countdowns and slideshows mainly and when my school launched its Moodle recently I started to see the applications.
A standard Moodle looks pretty boring. 'Nineties in its outlook you might say. So I started using Sproutbuilder to add a little bling, some RSS feeds, slideshows and useful links at the top of every subject. Of late I have started using Sproutbuilder to make little interactive modules for the students. You can see these at a new blog that I have started called Edusprouts where I hope to be able to aggregate not just my sprouts, but the sprouts of other teaching professionals. Not all sprouts will be suitable, forms and countdowns will probably have little use outside the confines of the course that you build the sprouts for, but for general sprouts like the one I have included below, any (science) teacher could find a use.
