Bulb: an app to publish what you know and learn what you don't.

I started using bulb after I got a free trial from TCEA. It is still in the beta stage so there have been a few bumps along the way. I have to say that I do enjoy it immensely and the response time to questions is lightning quick! Heck, I even got a phone call from one of the developers when I couldn't figure something out. Now that is amazing!!

For me bulb is like my very own repository for all the things my teachers need.  If you are interested in my bulb click HERE to see it. Sign up may be required.

Now I won't lie. It can get a bit convoluted if you are like me and tend to get a bit sidetracked (think Dug from UP) but with a bit of planning you can have a very nice, well laid out set of pages.
I am still working mine out. I started to just have the pages for my teachers at school but found that it might be better to do it on a larger scale. Heck, I might just move some of my crafting stuff there....

I reached out to the folks at bulb to see if they had anything they wanted to add to my humble blog and my new friend Maggie quickly replied with a few basics about bulb.

A lot of people ask us about pricing. Bulb is forever free, but we have bulb Pro accounts which allow you to create groups for private publishing (great for classrooms of all ages), and adds more storage to your account. Our teacher price is $4.95 month, which includes all of their students. 

We also get asked about commenting fairly often. We've gone with a Q&A feature instead to allow the account owner to have total control who posts on their account (questions don't even appear unless the author has approved and responded). This is to encourage learning communities to engage with each other in a positive and appropriate way. 

One of the things that separates us from most portfolio creation tools/sites is that we are also a publishing platform. While it sounds like semantics, it really is quite different. Rather than provide a helpful storage tool (like Google drive) or a website builder (like Google sites) we provide a place for students to publish their work, and start proactively shaping their online persona. One of the most frequent comments we get from teachers is that because their students are publishing their work to the world rather than just to the teacher or storing them somewhere for later, they are putting more time, energy and effort into them. They are learning digital citizenship and the importance of contributing to the world's knowledge.

Pretty awesome if you ask me!

Here is a little additional press on bulb.

Bulb Named Top Education App for 2014

Northern Colorado Business Report

Built in Colorado Keeping an Eye on Bulb