For most educators and students graphic organizers are nothing new. They allow educators to present new information to students a new way. Conversely, they also allow students to learn new information presented to them differently. It may seem redundant in the two previous statements, but let me state what I mean.
As an educator, students as we know, learn various ways. Using a graphic organizer such as Bubbl.Us allows the educator to give new information visually. Bubbl.Us is nothing really dramatic. It is a simple program that allows the educator to breakdown new concepts and ideas to be less complex and overwhelming to students. Once again conversely, if the student is say presented new information in a lecture, the student can use Bubbl.Us to organize the new information in a way that allows better comprehension by creating his/her own graphic representation of that particular lecture.
For Bubbl.Us, it is definitely a program that can be used at the elementary levels. Arguably, because it is so basic, it could be used at the middle school level. Due to its limitations such as being able to add icons, links, and images, I do not think it is robust enough for the high school level. Not to say high schoolers still could not utilize it, but there are other similar type graphical organizers such as WiseMapping, Mind42, and MindMeister to name a few that allow links, icons, and images to be embedded within a student's graphical representation.
Bubbl.Us includes the ability to drag and drop, zooming, create siblings and children (create other shapes with information in them). Those shapes can be colored differently and the font color can be changed too along with its size. The branches connecting those shapes can be labeled, lengthened, and shortened. Other students can collaborate in real-time or shown in a view-only format. Signing up to a payed account with Bubbl.Us allows someone to export their creation in a pdf format.
Overall Bubbl.Us is a good start for someone who is new to the world of graphical organizers. It can give students and/or educators the power to understand new ideas and concepts in a way never thought of before. With its simplicity, there is a fairly small learning curve. That in itself, may be the most overlooked benefit of this software.