Brainshark: The Birth of e-Learning and Creativity.

If you are looking for a convenient way of developing and delivering your learning or teaching materials, I think you've just found one: The Brainshark. 

What is Brainshark?

It is a web-based application that enables users to transform their Power Point slides and other content materials (documents, videos, PDFs etc) into voiced-enriched presentations for educational, training, business and other purposes. In other words, Brainshark enables you to narrate your own contents with just 2 simple steps:

1. Upload: Get your materials uploaded in the Brainshark web and it will automatically convert your content.
2. Record: Use computer microphone to start narrating your presentations. Even simpler, you can use your    mobile if you're on the go. 

Don't worry if your slide shows have loads of animation actions, Brainshark will efficiently show them all during your narrating process. 

Getting To Know Brainshark:

It's always a good idea to get yourself familiar with the tool first before you start using and exploiting it for your learning or teaching purposes. In this section, we'll explore some of the key features that make Brainshark a cutting edge tool that is distinctive from others of its kind. 

Figure 1: The homepage

To start working with the Brainshark, you can click on Try It For Free button and you'll be directed to a sign-up page where you're required to create your own Brainshark account. This will only take you a minute and once you're all set up, you can directly log in. 

Akin to Lyrics Training, Brainshark is also equipped with a friendly option buttons where you can search and filter your contents according to your tags and categories. Notice the blue box with the Brainshark's uses on the right hand side of the page and the upload button above it. This is where the distinctive element comes in: other reviewed web tools apparently do not have such great uses as Brainshark does. Intervue only offers videoed interviews with limited (60s) responses, Bubblr only accounts for pictorial strips with no animation feature while Dvolver only favours limited movie animation.

Brainshark, on the other hand, allows for (at least) 5 main uses:

• Voiced-Power Point Presentation
• Voiced-Document Presentation
• Voiced-Video Demo
• Voiced-Photo Album
• Creating podcasts.

Note that these features are available for a FREE version of the tool. If you get yourself a PRO Brainshark account, there will be more interesting functions (Guessbook, Polls) await you. In other words, Brainshark is the upgraded version of all the reviewed web tools which offers more advanced functions and uses. 

Figure 2: The working board

To start working, get your Power Point slide show uploaded, or if you're a returning user you can just directly go to My Content to resume editing your work. There are plenty of edit features available in here such as Edit Presentation, Add Slides, Download the Podcast and Add Question. Edit Presentation itself allows users to manage your slides, manage audio (including recording and adding background audio), add attachment and questions as well as comes with other basic function of Print, View, Share and Delete. 

Figure 3: Edit Presentation

To narrate your presentation, click on the Record Audio and you will need to choose your recording method: via mobiles or computer microphone. 

What if I stumbled or forget my points? Will it affect my presentation? Well, obviously it's not. Brainshark won't even allow it to happen. There will be Retry, Discard and Save buttons displayed once you've finished narrating each slide show. You can always play your recording first before deciding to save and continue with the next slide or to delete and record a new one. Click End Recording Session once finished and you can start embedding your presentation in your blog or sharing it with your friends. Simple! 

Figure 4: Narrating your slide show

A lot to take in? I get you. Click here for Russell Stannard's easy peasy lemon squeezy Brainshark Tutorial. 

Example of Voiced-PowerPoint Presentation

TIPS: 

Once finished, don't forget to change the status of your presentation from INACTIVE to ACTIVE. This will allow your work to be accessible for public viewers. 

Brainshark & Relevance in Learning:

Blended Learning Era:

My personal view of technology in learning and teaching is that ICT is meant to supplement the whole process, not to take away the traditional role of the teacher and students' face-to-face classroom instruction. Brainshark as the medium for this hybrid learning fits the concept perfectly as it combines both teacher-students classroom interaction with computer-mediated activities and together it forms an integrated instructional approach. Adopting Brainshark in learning would mean that distant learning is no longer a barrier. Teachers could have virtual classes with their students and easily link them with extra online materials for homework or exam preparation. Or even better teachers could get their lessons recorded through voiced-PowerPoint presentation for absent students and indirectly make learning more accessible to them regardless of where they are. The whole idea of employing Brainshark for blended learning does not only offer flexibility and convenience on both teachers and students parts, but also is aimed for developing learners' independent learning skills in a long run. 

You might want to consider the balance between such online instruction and direct interaction with your students, however, depending on their learning level because obviously blended learning (particularly with Brainshark) will require them to have at least basic knowledge in ICT.  I would not recommend Brainshark for a supplement learning for students with pre-intermediate level and below because I think less advanced learners would benefit more in real classroom instruction rather than virtual. 

Why It Is Recommended?

• The skeleton of an integrated learning: Combines speaking, writing as well as listening inextricably.
• A source for assessment: Teacher could use students works on Brainshark to assess their learning formatively.
• A practice platform: Students could email their presentation to the teacher and have it assessed virtually before the actual day of the evaluation day.
• Reduce students' affective filter: Students can present their works through voiced-presentation without having to worry to talk in front of the whole class - lowers their anxiety and indirectly increases their confidence in speaking.
• Free! Everybody loves free stuff. :)
• Provide students with a reason for speaking.
• A room for creativity development: Brainshark allows students to get creative as they are able to add background musics, questions for presentation, audio clips and so forth.
• Gain wider audiences: Brainshark's links can be emailed and embedded in blogs.
• Accessibility: Brainshark presentations can be viewed public (unless you set it as inactive)

Some Shortcomings:

• Since this tool only allows for voiced-based presentation, assessing speaking skills (particularly fluency and accuracy) could be an issue as students may have the script written and they just read it aloud. 
• Time constraint: Making a voiced presentation is a time consuming process - not suitable for a classroom activity.
• Feedback issue (this will be discussed in Recommendation section below)
• Proper microphones are needed if students want to narrate their presentations using computers or laptops. 

Classroom Activities with Brainshark:

Brainshark & Feedback Issue: Recommendations

Since voiced-based tasks are often highly personalized, finding the right way to channel feedback to students' works has been a major concern on the teacher's part. The question is how should teachers  deal with it? Here are some of my humble recommendations:

1. Peer evaluation: Presentations do not always have to be individually assessed solely by the teacher - it could be exploited for peer-feedback activity. Get the students to assess one another by pairing them and this could be done as a follow-up activity after creating their own Brainshark presentation. Feedback from peers are believed to have more impacts on students' learning as it increases their awareness of their own mistakes by correcting their friends' work. 
2. Group / Whole Class evaluation: Besides serving as an evaluative basis for groupwork activity, assessing Brainshark presentations in groups also allows for a discussion platform where students get to communicate and rationalise their judgements in checking errors in their tasks. Teacher, however, need to clearly explain the criteria for evaluation (eg: accuracy, fluency, pronunciation, cohesion factors) before letting them to assess their friends' presentations. 
3. Individual evaluation by teacher: Once in awhile it is always good for teachers to be able to assess students' work individually as it will provide them with more precise and accurate feedback on areas for improvement. 

P/S: Brainshark is sure worth a try especially for a novice user like me. I was impressed by its functionality when first exploring it. Try yours and let me know how you feel about it!

Thanks for reading! :)

My Rating on Brainshark's Usefulness:

5/5

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