Personally I think this was more frustrating than anything. After spending a couple hours fooling around and exploring, I found that most of what was out there was either useless for teaching purposes or I couldn't get things to work. I really like the concept of Bubblr, which was a mashup that allows a person to take images from flickr and put them into a comic strip with speech bubbles. The idea is great for having students demonstrate their creativity and higher level thinking of different topics connected to history and how different events of geography might impact them. Students could also use images found on flickr to tell a story using that app. However, I couldn't get the site to load any images. I am not sure if it was a problem with the site or a problem with me. Very frustrating because I would have liked to play with it a little.
Another idea I liked was Mappr, but that mashup said it no longer uses images from Flicker. The concept was to link images from flickr with a map. Again, I could see how this could be used as a method of teaching and evaluating students' understanding of geography. Unfortunately it no longer works. Sigh.
Another mashup I liked was the Trading Card one. I like the idea of having students search for images connected to something I am teaching about in the classroom and creating trading cards that show how the images relate to their learning. I also like the idea of having students create a card game using the trading cards. This application/mashup/whatever you call it is a great idea, but I can't figure out whether these can just be printed or if they have to be purchased.
Clearly there are a lot of tools out there...almost too many I am beginning to think. If anyone else tried Bubblr and was able to get it to work let me know how...I'd love to try it out!
Jodi: You have a lot of creative ideas that your students are going to love! Try using Bubblr directly from this site instead of from the Flickr site.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/
When we get to wikis you'll be able to have your students upload their Bubblr comic strips onto the wiki for everyone to see.
As for Flickr Mappr Maps(*#$%@&*--Oh, did I say that out loud?)I recommend; and this is from personal experience(see *#$%@&* above),using Google Earth My Map instead. It's a similar application with only one difference--it actually works!