Finally! A tool that would be suitable for use in a classroom of Infants all the way through to a university level. Bubble.Us can be used in a classroom to determine the student's understandings of a topic through pre and post testing.
The tool is easy to use and visually easy to read. When I do brainstorming on the whiteboard the student's ideas become muddled up because of space issues - this tool allows the user to move the "Bubbles" and "sub-Bubbles" to a space that fits, and gives the options of changing colours to give clearer grouping options.
Glogster
What an amazing tool for both teachers and students to share their knowledge and understandings of a topic!
What comes to mind though is the issue of equality. Although the program is a free tool, students who have access to a computer are more likely to have a greater knowledge on how to use the program, therefore being more confident to import things like videos, pictures, animations and sounds. One of the first things that I thought of when I saw an example of a document created on Glogster was how impressive it looked - far more interactive than a cardboard poster! - but then my thoughts turned to those who weren't confident users of both the program and a computer. Teachers need to be mindful of focusing on the content of the document, and not be drawn to the impressive links (videos, pictures, animations and sounds) that have been uploaded onto the document. By doing that, I actually wonder how much a student knows about the topic - do they know how to use the program more than they actually understand the topic? The topic of access to computers is once again an issue that needs to be addressed - obviously a very costly and time consuming issue, but one that will affect the future of our children.
Having said that I just tried to use it and it is actually very simple to use! What will they think of next? :)
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