Organizer Comparison

This weeks assignment was the great organizer comparison, specifically the functionality and ease of use of three web tools. The three tools that I chose to use and kick around for the last couple of days were Bubbl.us, Exploratree and the Education Oasis section on Graphic Organizers.

In terms of the three I choose Bubbl.us is slightly different because I viewed it as a place where students could go individually or as collaborative groups to help with organization of ideas. I think this tool would be great for students to work on a project together and divide up roles that could be color coded within Bubbl.us. Each could contribute the majority of their notes to their sections, but still help the others. They are then able to manipulate their concept map to make connections and bring all their information together. Bubble.us would be a great 1st step for a group that was wanting to create a project or write a paper together, making sure they were all on the same page and were writing with the same ideas and organizational structure.

The last two tools have the feel, to me, of teacher tools. The seem like a way to create and deliver a method for students to organize their knowledge. They would not be as adaptable for the students once they received them. I have already bookmarked these two sites for this year, because they had a lot of options and were well organized by goals. I liked how both sites offered suggestions on how each type of organizer might be used in the class. One of the sites, in my opinion, was significantly more valuable to me than the other. The key difference was adaptability. The Education Oasis organizers were given in PDF form and needed to be printed out. On the other hand Exploratree's organizers could be manipulated, shared, displayed and saved all online so that a teacher could create their own personal virtual binder of specific organizers that were geared towards their subjects and objectives. This overwhelmingly impressed me. The thought of being able to go back online and simply and easily edit my organizer making changes, even for a period later in the day is very impressive.

Overall, all three tools were easy to use from day one, but the best ones were those that allowed collaboration between students and teachers, as well as between students. Those were bubbl.us and Exploratree.