Week Six Cool Tool Review, bubbl.us

This week, the cool tool I chose to review was bubbl.us. It is a concept mapping tool. You start with a central bubble, and can make bubbles off of that, and off of those ones, and so on. You can save the concept maps on the website, or export them as a picture. It is free to use, but there are upgrades you can pay for. They do have an iOS app along with their website.

The website is very easy to use. I made my free account, then began. I started with my central bubble, then made the bubbles off of it, and so on. You can change the color of the bubbles, or of the text, which makes it customizable.

I made two concept maps. The first one is very simple. I’m currently in another class called Understanding Literacy Development and Phonics, and a very important concept is phonological awareness. I made a concept map of the things that make up phonological awareness that I can use to help study. It is somewhat small, making it harder to read. If you click on it, it is much bigger easier to read.

Another concept map I made was a more fun one. It was about Harry Potter books. I started with the central idea of Harry Potter, branched off into each book, and then summarized each book. They were very quick summaries, missing a lot of detail. It could go much more in depth, listing things such as characters, setting, plot, etc. It has the same issue with being small and harder to read on the blog post, but when it is clicked it becomes a lot easier to read.

This tool could easily be used in the classroom. I personally am using it as a student making the map about phonological awareness. The Harry Potter map can also be used in the classroom. You could have a child make a concept map about anything. They could make it about a book they read. They could do a map about major historical events. They could do a map about a science concept. The possibilities are endless. This can be both the technology and pedagogy part of TPACK. In my Introduction to Exceptionalities class, a class about special education, we learned that graphic organizers are a very effective way to teach and help students tremendously. As a teacher I could make graphic organizers to pass out to students to help them understand something by understanding how things relate to each other, or I can have students make them for me so I can assess their understanding.

This could easily be used by students, as shown by my maps. I could predict there being a bit of a learning curve about how to operate the website as first, because I did need to read their help page. Once I did that, it was easy to use. Most of the map is made through typing, which could be an issue if a student has typing problems.

Overall, I really think this tool could be used effectively and easily in the classroom, as long as a child is able to read and write and type. In a kindergarten class, this wouldn’t be able to be used the way it would in a high school class. Younger children might not yet have the ability to bounce concepts off of each other and type them out in a concept map.