Two more awesome tools, which at first I thought would have difficulty in integrating into my area of Mathematics. Brainstorming is a concept which is not widely used in Mathematics lessons, so the thought of using Bubbl.us was really catching my attention until..... My Year 9 class had just begun a unit of Geometry work and we were looking at key basic concepts. I was concerned that by using their newly acquired laptops and using software called Geometer’s Sketchpad, that they were not retaining the knowledge that they needed. Brillant idea ............let us use Bubbl.us to draw together all of the information that they had hopefully learnt. The students were all shown how to open an account and the basics of how to use it and then required to use it to bring together the important concepts. Of course, they did this in varying degrees, some were fantastic but others showed that they had missed out on some key points. After each student had shared their Bubbl.us with me, we looked at several on the Smartboard and discussed the information that was good and that which was missing – a wonderful learning experience for all of them. Students then went back and completed information that they had missed or put in incorrectly. Some of the better ones were printed off to hand on display in the classroom. I also tried to embed some into our class wiki page, but realised that I could only copy it in as a jpeg. One the students embedded hers into the wiki at home. These have provided the students with a valuable revision tool which is easily accessed at home.
Below is a student’s work on the Introduction to Geometry topic using Bubbl.us.
Glogster, I feel, would be a great tool to use to keep students interested in the course content in a fun way. Eventually, I intend to use Glogster, not only to enable the students to make their own interactive posters, but as a poster for an assignment or for revision purposes. For Mathematics topics, I would be able to add links to formulae, powerpoints which review work, videos from Schooltube/Teachertube which the students could watch and relearn concepts and I could also insert other Web2 tools.
