Lisa+Rose-+Bubbl.us


 * What:** bubbl.us
 * Web Address:** []
 * Student's Name:** Lisa Rose
 * Grade Levels:** any
 * Content Area:** any


 * Abstract:** I learned about bubbl.us from Sarah Dennewitz's first tech tools post. It is a concept mapping website that allows you to create and link bubbles, type into them and edit them. It could be useful in any content area as a tool to help students organize, brainstorm, and make connections between different concepts. The final product, as Sarah pointed out, can be saved, printed, or exported to be shared.


 * Personal Experience:** I used this tool as a review strategy. I assigned pairs a chapter that we'd studied throughout the year and had them map the vocabulary for the chapter. It was really helpful for them as far as seeing how words are connected, and made them engage in some thinking skills they wouldn't have used if we'd just reviewed the vocabulary at once. For example, chapter seven in our book deals with summer and winter vacations, so those were the headings, and the vocabulary branched out from there. I thought that would be fairly simple, but some students really struggled to connect things logically, and I think this activity was great for them- they were able to do it it just took lots of direction to start. After all groups were done, I had them present their product to the class, which helped review because it put the class in contact with words they hadn't seen in a while and the visual often reminded them what the word meant without a translation. (Oh, nadar is listed under piscina, I remember piscina means pool, so nadar must be swim...) This worked great as a vocabulary review tool, but I think it could be useful in many other ways too, like Sarah mentioned, perhaps to map characters in a story, for example. It is easy to learn and students enjoyed being able to adjust formatting however they liked. It was fun to see how differently all of their products came out even though they were all given the same instructions.



I must have saved my students examples on my school computer, this is one I made as an example for the Spanish 3 class. For that class I had them upload their maps to a [|voicethread] to share with the class, and that was helpful because it has a zoom function so you can read it easier. My Spanish 1 classes printed their maps and projected them on the elmo to present them.