Bubblr For Learning.

What is Bubblr?

Bubblr is a useful web-based tool which enables users to create comic strips, complete with bubbles for thoughts and dialogues, from photos and other images stored in Flickr. The strips can be shared by email, saved to online archives, and shared with other users. As the site suggests, Bubblr is:

…a tool to create comic strips using photos from flickr.com. Begin searching images and add bubbles to them. So easy! Just type a tag and and press go!

How to Use Bubblr?

1. Simply search tag words for photos (for example: autumn) and click the go button. 

2. Photos related to your tag will be displayed and you can start choosing your pictures by dragging any selected photo into the white working box.

3. When a picture is selected it automatically becomes the background for the entire frame so you cannot have two pictures in a box. Simply click before current or after current to add more frames or pictures.

4. To add speech bubbles or text boxes, simply drag the bubble icons onto your frames or pictures. Drag back the icons out of your frames if you decide to delete them.

5. Once it is done, click publish. 

6. To review your work, go to the archive.

7. You can blog your comic strips or presentation by embedding the html code or post the link into your facebook, twitter and other social networking mediums.

For a visual tutorial you can visit this link: Bubblr Screencast

Why Bubblr?

Supports Affective Theory of Learning: 

If you believe that learning outcomes improve when students are highly motivated and actively engaged with the task then this tool can be a perfect answer. Bubblr facilitates a great deal of creativity as students are able to create their own comic strips with preferred pictures, which can be greatly engaging and may ultimately increase their motivation for learning. Bubblr also recognizes the emotional influence in learning by enabling students to work around their preferences and personal interests which can highly contribute to their success in language learning. 

Personalized learning:

Learning styles vary - Bubblr revolves around the main principle of personalized learning which caters for students' own learning styles and supports them to learn in their own unique ways. It is highly visual appealing and allow students to work at their own pace and therefore is best utilized for individual tasks. This tool also enables your learners to make connections and relate with their own life and personal experiences which makes learning is more accessible to them.

The new realia:

The high quality and wide variety of pictures available means that you can reinvigorate any topic by making a visually appealing presentation. Because not all teaching topics can be presented by realia (you cannot expect to bring a polar bear into your classroom when teaching Antartica!), presenting a short Bubblr presentation to your class could be a useful warmer activity as it helps to captivate their interest into the topic and indirectly hold their attentiveness for the next activity. Most importantly while the use of realia is heavily subjected to practicality, Bubblr, on the other hand, breathes life into students' creativity and saves preparation time on teacher's part. 

Other plus points for using Bubblr:

• User-friendly: This tool is easy to navigate - suitable for all levels.
• Helps to develop writing skills: Bubblr makes it compulsory for students to comment on pictures, which means that they will always have the opportunity to develop their writing skills.
• Ownership element: Allows for a sense of personalization of ideas.
• It's free.
• Encourages creative writing: Creating poems or dialogues.
• Integrated skills: Presenting works will integrate speaking, writing and listening skills.
• Alternative for PowerPoint: Handy for visual presentations.
• Interesting: A fun way of classroom learning. Students can just have fun with the tool, creating funny, fictional stories. What child doesn't like comics? :)

Like any other web tools, however, Bubblr also have its own limitations. I will definitely not recommend Bubblr for a single period teaching (40 minutes) because it is definitely not a time-friendly tool. There are just too many pictures to choose from and the availability of thousands of pictures means that creating a picture strip is potentially to be quite time consuming. Most of the time the tags used to describe pictures are not precise and unreliable, and I really find this upsetting. My first experience with Bubblr last week was that it took me almost half an hour to just get the real autumn sceneries for my presentation. Similarly, the next time I searched for winter in the tag engine, the first 20 pictures that appeared were just frosted rooftops and white puppies. This really explains why Bubblr could be a potentially time consuming tool for learning (what more for a classroom task) because the tags do not always define the items that you are searching for. 

The other drawback I identified with Bubblr is that picture strips are automatically made public once you hit the publish button. This means that it will be made accessible to all viewers anonymously all around the globe. For an introvert like me, I don't quite fancy the idea of getting my works accessible to everyone because I really find it intimidating. Furthermore, there is no delete or hide button in the archive and this tool also allows for rating and automatically displays the view number. Because it would be really demotivating for students with lower confidence to get their works rated by someone they barely know, I'd recommend teachers who wish to use Bubblr for classroom purposes to clearly explain the implications or problems it might have on students' work before using it for language tasks. 

Other disadvantages:

• Inappropriate photos: Bubblr's tags work akin to Google's search engine - it does not filter images, some might be inappropriate for young learners.
• Limited source: The only source for photos is Flickr, students cannot embed pictures from other sources.
• Personal photos: Bubblr does not allow learners to upload their personal collections of photos.
• Lack of edit functions: Text boxes, bubbles, picture size and fonts cannot be adjusted or resized.
• Only works online: Bubblr cannot be used without internet connection.

Suggested Classroom Activities

1. Using a Bubblr slideshow for a writing prompt. This covers general topics such as travel, food, nature and hobbies.
2. Using Bubblr comic strips for creative writing: Students can choose their own cartoons or artists and make dialogues based on the given topics.
3. Using Bubblr for poetry: Students can create poems or limericks based on their preferred pictures and present their work in groups.
4. A perfect tool for icebreaking-based activity: Students to make a short slideshow about themselves and present it to their partners or the whole class.
5. Students to make a quick presentation on science comics such as the lifecycle of a butterfly or frog or the transformations of matter. 
6. Teacher to use Bubblr tool for teaching sequential or process like essays such as How to Make An Omelette or How to Brush Your Teeth. As a task, ask students to create one sequential slideshow each and present their work to the respective partners.

Example:

How Bubblr could be improved? 

• Upgrading the tool with edit functions. This includes Bubblr to have a font button  for more size and colour selection and the caption box to be resized. 
• Adding Tumblr and Google as the main sources instead of just Flickr for wider choices. 
• Embedding the animation element: Allow Bubblr to be more than just visually appealing, songs or animations can enhance students' interests and learning. 
• Enabling the extras functions: If Bubblr could incorporate graphs, charts or statistics, it would have an added-function to learning, particularly for presentation purposes. 

My Rating on Bubblr's Usefulness:

2 1/2 /5