LEARNING OBJECTS

Learning Objects: Bubbl.us 

This is my mind mapping about "Doctors Without Borders." Bubbl.us is an interesting online tool to make thematic webs. 

My experience in class with this kind of website was very useful. I implemented this tool during a pre-task activity at Colegio de la UNLPam with students belonging to 5° Year (A)

As the task that students have to accomplish is the writing of a letter to the editor, during the pre-task stage I showed them a Piktochart presentation about “How to do a letter to the editor.” I explained to them what is a letter to the editor, the purpose of writing a letter to the editor, and the way in which they could arrange ideas, opinions and factual information. As I have made my own letter to the editor I showed them the process of my writing, and it was at this moment that I presented them a brainstorming I designed using Bubbl.us presentations.

While the students were working in their own brainstormings, some of them stood up from their chairs and looked very carefully how the different bubbles contained a different concept with important words or phrases,and despite the fact that their brainstormings were written in a paper, some of the students tried to copy the format of "la lluvia de ideas" as one of them said.

Here is the Bubbl.us presentation I presented to students as a tool to organize their letter to the editor.

As regards suitability, I think this type of online tool can be implemented with students from all ages and from all levels. Apart from being a wonderful tool to create brainstormings, it can also be a useful way to present vocabulary during a pre-task activity. For instance, if the topic is "Food", students can create different bubbles distinguishing different types of food (vegetables, protein, fruits, grains and diary)  and from these bubbles they can place arrows to open bubbles containing information about different kinds of vegetables, proteins, fruits, etc, then they can place arrows joining these bubbles with others containing different dishes you can cook, and so on.