【Bubblr】: the comic strip making tool

What is Bubblr?

Bubblr, a comic strip making software by PimPamPum.

Bubblr (http://www.pimpampum.net/bubblr/) is a free online software created by the company PimPamPum which allows its users to create a short comic/picture strips using the photos from Flickr.com. The users can also use their own photos if they have their own Flickr account.

ScreenShot 1: This is the homepage of the Bubblr website

How to use it?

 In order to create a comic/images strip in Bubblr, there are just a few easy and user friendly steps to follow. Here you go!

This flowchart shows the five simple steps to create Bubblr comic strip.

Why do teachers and student like Bubblr?

1. Personalisation- Bubblr is all about personalisation and ownership. It gives teacher and students the opportunity to create own images strips based on own creativity and ways of expressing ideas. Students' creativity and thinking skills can be enhanced when they are planning their ideas as well as choosing and organising the images and putting in bubbles.

2. Engaging- It also has provided a chance for teacher to make the classroom learning environment to be more engaging because Bubblr is a combination of things such as choosing pictures and put in captions which students would be enjoy doing so much!

3. Building up writing skills- Students' writing skills can be built up slowly when they are trying to opt for the most suitable words to put in the bubbles in order to describe their images and convey their messages successfully.

How can Bubblr be used in ELT classroom?

1.   Historical timeline- Bubblr would be a amazing tool used to illustrate a historical timeline because by its dynamic timeline structure.

For example, teacher can have students to produce a Bubblr strip to narrate the history of the students themselves. It could be a picture for each year, starting from the year they were born until the year which they are in now. 

2. Procedure describing- Due to the scrolling linear feature of Bubblr, it can also be a great tool for students to describe the step-by-step procedures of performing an activity. 

For example, the procedure of making a chocolate cake and the correct steps of brushing teeth. With the accompany of images and bubbles, the strip will look livelier if compared to the traditional flowchart.

3.    Story creating based on images given by teacher- If a class has a Flickr account, it then allows the teacher to direct students to a certain resource and certain images to use. 

For example, the teacher can upload a couple of images onto Flickr and have the students access them using the class username, then the teacher will ask the students to rearrange the images based on their imagination, and create a short story from that. 

Some limitations of Bubblr

Despite of all the usefulness which have been stated above, Bubblr actually does have limitation as well.

1. Image placing- Once the images have been dragged down to the linear timeline structure, they cant be move around just by dragging. If the user has mistakenly put an image in a wrong place, he/she has to delete the image and add it again at the right position.

2. Bubble size- The thinking/ text bubble cannot be resized. Sometimes, the whole image would look nicer if the bubble can be resized and be put at the right position. 

3. Bubble arrow- the arrow can just be moved around at the bottom of the bubble, but not at the side. It would make the placing of the bubble difficult occasionally if the user wants to point the arrow to something at the side of the bubble and do not want to block some part of the image.

Below is an example I did using Bubblr. The topic is Italy- which is one of the country I like the most. And this strip is showing some of the Italy main attractions and also my favourite Italian food. Enjoy and start to make yours too! (^_^)

For more detailed information, please visit http://www.teachertrainingvideos.com/bubblr/index.html. This is a teacher training video specially produced by my lecturer, Russell Stannard on the topic of how to use Bubblr.

【Lyrics Training】: Enhancing Listening Skills and Vocabs through Songs

Sample song from Lyrics Training - Call Me Maybe

WHAT IS LYRICS TRAINING?

Lyrics Training is a website which allows teachers and students to read and listen to the lyrics from music videos, and then fill in the missing lyrics as they go along. Bear in mind that this site is NOT SIMPLY KARAOKE but is also pretty useful for students of foreign language to improve their listening skills because they are required to identify words from a song. It can also be used as a fun and interactive means by language teachers to assist their students by introducing new vocabulary as well as grammar to them.

HOW TO USE IT?

There are seven different songs' languages to choose from (see Screenshot 2.1) in Lyrics Training. That means this site is not merely functional for ESL/EFL students but also for other users who would like to develop their listening skills and vocabulary of some other languages. However in our ELT case, we choose English as our songs' language.

Screenshot 2.1: Languages available for lyrics training.

After that, you can start by searching for lyrics by typing song title or artists' names into the search box. Once you have decided on a song, you will be told which kind of accents the particular song is sung in and the difficulty levels of the lyrics chosen (see Screenshot 2.2). 

Screenshot 2.2: Songs' accents and difficulties levels are both shown.

The next step is choosing a level- Beginner, Intermediate or Expert (see Screenshot 2.3). The level chosen determines how many words in the lyrics are missing and students have to fill in. After this, all you go!

Screenshot 2.3: Three different Levels are available to choose from. 

p/s: What is absolutely the highlight of this tool is that while you are hesitating about filling which words into the gaps, the song stops automatically and waits for you to do the job. And, in case you feel the need to listen to a particular line again, no problem!

Screenshot 2.4: Some buttons to help you during training

WHY DO TEACHERS & STUDENTS LIKE LYRICS TRAINING?

Teachers and students like Lyrics Training might be due to the following few reasons:

a) It is absolutely FREE where teachers and students can have
    access to it anytime and anywhere.

b) It is incredibly simple to use and also could be rather
    interesting because the students could choose the songs
    which they like or would like to learn.

c) This tool could be highly appropriate for students who
    are strong musically and spatially (visually) [according
    to Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences]
    since they will be more likely to develop listening skills
    and learn vocabulary items faster and easier through listening as
    well as watching the music videos frequently. 

d) Turning the classroom atmosphere to be more relaxing
     by using songs could help much in language learning
     because students' affective filter will become lower by
     having lower level of anxiety and higher level of motivation 
     and confidence. 

HOW COULD IT BE USED IN LANGUAGE LEARNING CONTEXT?

1) (a) Some pre-listening activities can be carried out before
          listening to a song. For examples,
          (i) show the students some song-related pictures or
          (ii) ask some topic related/ guiding questions 
    This is to activate students' schemata and have students to
    contextualise the whole picture in order to have a rough
    idea on what the song is all about.
   
     (b) Then, teachers can project the music video on the
           projector screen and the whole class can enjoy and
           fill the gaps together.

2) For higher-levelled students, teachers can divide them into
    pairs/ group of three and have them listen then write out
    the entire song lyrics together on paper before comparing
    their outcomes with the original lyrics.

3) Teachers can also set listening to a particular song as homework.

SOME LIMITATIONS OF LYRICS TRAINING

• Sometimes it could be too difficult to listen properly to what the singers are actually singing due to the fast rhythmic patterns of the songs. Some singers' voice tones are not appropriate for certain mode (eg: Beginner) as well (see Screenshot 2.5).

Screenshot 2.5: Problem of inappropriate singer's voice tone pointed out by one of the users.

• The lyrics will stuck halfway sometimes although the music is still on which causes the users have to restart all over again. It could be quite frustrating, really! 

That's all about it. ** HOPE YOU ENJOY IT! **

【Dvolver Movie Maker】: Learning Language through Animated Characters

Home page of Dvolver Movie Maker Site

 WHAT IS DVOLVER MOVIE MAKER?

Dvolver Movie Maker, over 8 million movies have been created in it! This is a FREE website which includes a lot of chit chat and various interesting characters. To be precise, this site enables both teachers and students to either express their own views or practise their language usage by directing their own short movies using their own imagination and language.

What's interesting is Dvolver offers its users with wide range of choices throughout the movies making process. For example, there are more than 10 beautiful backgrounds and 30 animated characters to be chosen from. Additionally, the users are free to choose any plot and put in any lines which they would like their characters to say. After that, more scenes can also be added on to turn their dialogue into an awesome movie!

HOW TO USE IT?    

There are just 8 EASY PEASY STEPS to create your own movie by using Dvolver.

Look at the slideshow below!

SAMPLE MOVIES

The followings are the sample movies which I have created through Dvolver. 

Have a quick look and hope you'll enjoy it!!

Movie 1: The Elf''s Revenge 1 (To be continued..)

Movie 2: The Elf's Revenge 2 (The End)

WHY DO TEACHERS & STUDENTS LIKE DVOLVER?

Developing students’ writing and creative thinking skills is a vital part of learning languages. Using Dvolver Movie Maker as a tool to create digital comics in learning allows students to experiment and utilise these skills. As compared to face to face speaking, this way of communication enables students to express contents confidently through the movie characters so that constraints caused by psychological barriers to production on second language (L2) learners are eliminated and pressure related to productive skills is minimised.

Dvolver Movie Maker can be very helpful for both lower and higher-levelled students as for the previous, it maximised the use of simple language and it allow use of a variety of language registers for the latter. Its enjoyable format also helps enhance students’ motivation to learn languages by using an active learning tool and promoting active and creative approach of students. Indirectly, Dvolver can also increase students’ self-esteem because using the interesting characters and backgrounds to supports the students’ stories allows professional result which students can feel proud of.    

HOW CAN I APPLY DVOLVER IN AN ELT LESSON?

To implement language learning lessons utilising Dvolver Movie Maker, it is necessary to have a classroom equipped with computers and the Internet connection. The task can be equally completed as homework. Students can work either individually or in groups to come up with a solution.

There are plenty of possibilities on how to explore Dvolver in an ELT lesson:

•  Use movies to talk about holidays, school, work, etc.
•  Encourage students to use movie’s characters to  comment on local or national celebrations, cultural
   events and social trends.
•  Have students place value or reflect on a particular
   experience in a movie.
•  Illustrate a language problem.
•  Have a character to explain a grammar point or go  through a vocabulary students were taught in the  lesson.
•  Create a drama using the short movies created by students.
   Students may serialise their dramas by creating a new episode/scene each day as part of a continuing story.
• 
  

The results can be presented or emailed to the teacher and/or students. Another possibility is to select the best movie between all the students and place it on the school website if there is one.

SOME LIMITATIONS OF DVOLVER

• Users can only choose two characters and type in six characters' line in each scene. And, maximum three scenes can be made in each movie. This could lead to a monotonous atmosphere and a quick loss of interest for higher-levelled learners.
• The movie characters cannot speak aloud and they possess the same facial expressions at all time.
• Movies cannot be edited once they have been finished created. Users have to redo all over again if there are mistakes.
• There are no "Rewind", "Pause", "Fast forward" buttons when the movie is playing. It could be difficult for teachers if they want to stop and explain a particular dialogue to their students.
• Users are unable to make the movie into full screen mode.
• Mandarin language cannot be used as one of the medium for the dialogue.