Group 4: Bubble.us in the classroom

Bubble.us is a mind mapping or brainstorming tool that is accessible through the Internet : https://bubbl.us/
It a a great ICT tool that can be and should be utilised by Learning Managers in schools today. Brainstorming is something that every teacher encourages students to do. Mind mapping is an activity that is promoted by Education Queensland and thus, it is included in every classroom in schools today. Unfortunately, brainstorming with large groups of students can become uninteresting and tedious for the students; Bubble.us is a new and exciting way to to put the students ideas together. Bubble.us allows the students to have interaction with different technologies and stimulates creativeness with the ease of changing colours, font types, and branches out to new bubbles.

I have began creating one; my example is one that could expand to great lengths and could be continued on throughout many lessons with students, it is also an example that shows that Bubble.us is an ICT tool that is not only useful in classroom for students. Bubble.us could be used for teachers / learning managers in staff meetings, in preparation for classes / lesson planning, and much more. Here is mine that I have only just begun:

So, I have only mentioned very few of the benefits that Bubble.us as an ICT tool can be in a classroom. I had great fun exploring with it for the first time, in fact, I had never heard of it before the Managing E-learning course introduced it to me.

Strengths:
- Easily accessible / quick
- It promotes concept mapping
- Fun
- Interesting
- Creative
- Makes brainstorimg more visually attractive
- Interactive
- Advanced form of brainstorming
- Appealing to the students

Weaknesses:
- Need access to at least one computer (teachers)
- It is an ICT tool, therefore, you need to have some sort of direction with computers
- You can't attach images which could be very useful sometimes
- If you were to divide the students up, doing multiple different bubble.us's, it could be difficult to combine all of the results together.

Oppurtunities:
- Encourages collaborative learning
- Concept map could be introduced to guide students learning and goals

Threats:
- Students need to understand the calue of mind mapping and how it can be used

All in all, Bubble.us is a very effective ICT to use in classrooms, it is a fun and easy to use mind mapping and brainstorming tool. Because mind mapping and brainstorming is something that is implemented in every classroom, Bubble.us will allow creativity to be introduced back into education ( which has been lacking, particularly in high schools); creativity is important to me as a learning manager because students need it develop and grow as learners. 

Use Bubble.us it is so easy and looks great!