Sweet Macaron with a taste of Bubblr!

A better version is available at: http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/?id=32902

Hello everyone, now that I have my reading week, I have more time to update my blogs. Today, I would like to introduce you to one of the websites that is amazing and easy to use. I remember the first time I tried it in Russell's ICT class, I instantly falling in love with this website. For a person who love photography and English, the mixture of both give a fresh injection to teaching and learning in English. So now, let's dive into Bubblr.

What is Bubblr?

Bubblr is a website for people to create comic-strips by using a photostream, taken direct from Flickr and then make a sequence of pictures where you can add dialogue boxes ( as in bubble shapes). Later, all pictures are saved in the archive. Besides, there are variety of pictures to choose from where you can just key in any words in a tag field (e.g macaron, cakes) and enter 'search'. Students can start from there to build a story using the images that appear based on their selection.

By using Pimpampum Bubblr, a teacher can have his/her students to work and their own before presenting it to the whole class. The key idea to this is to have students to speak in front of the class by presenting their picture stories to others. In addition, students can choose any topic that they like for examples footballs, foods, and animals. This may create personalisation to students as they are able to express their creativity freely.

Here are some of the snapshots taken from:

http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/

The advantages:

1. The most important thing for teachers and students is the website is free. It is accessible for all and can be made as part as classroom activity or as a homework for students.
2. Promotes creativity among students. Bubblr has many varieties of pictures to choose from. This will create personalisation among students. It is very important to let students do topics that they love so that students may engage with the activities better.
3. An opportunity to develop communicative skills. Teachers can use it for presentation and have students to present their chosen topics.
4. There is no need to be worried about taking pictures from Flickr because it is a photostream that works as a platform to share pictures legally.
5. The bubble boxes help students to describe their pictures. This may at least give some language input in the teaching and learning session.

The limitations:

1. The aim of the lesson may be diverted as some students might search for inappropriate pictures.
2. It may attract more attention to people with visual learning style. However, it depends a lot on how the teacher is going to carry out the lesson. Therefore, engaging multiple learning styles in one lesson will be more useful for students.
3. It is time consuming. It is better to give it as a homework.
4. Again, it might be problematic for students who do not have any access to the internet.

To sum up, as I said earlier, the website is worth to use. It is a fun way to teach your students about English and technologies. Sometimes we need to try new things and not to rely too much on Power point presentation. I hope you have found something interesting here that can be used to deliver your teaching. It is a hard work for teachers to teach students nowadays since their lives involve so much with technologies. Therefore, we need to be able to make use of the tools available online so that we can keep up with 21st century's students.

Till then, cheers!