The Bubble Sort Algorithm

The Bubble Sort Algorithm, according to Wikipedia, is 'a simple sorting algorithm that repeatedly steps through the list to be sorted, compares each pair of adjacent items and swaps them if they are in the wrong order.' It is this algorithm that we have been focusing on in the past two lessons, aiming to create a tutorial teaching others how this algorithm functions and how to perform it yourself.

I chose to create my tutorial in the form of an animation. Not knowing any renowned websites, or having discovered any simple apps doing so, I simply searched 'make your own animation' and chose the first search result. It was a website named Moovly, one which I am aware is become increasingly popular.

Moovly offers tutorials on how to use the website but they are limited and somewhat misleading. After completing the tutorial, I had assumed it would have shown me how to edit the timings, alter the background, add voice over, and other key features to an animation-based website but it had involved none of these things and I had to learn how to use the website independently, which was the first mistake. I spent a lot of time exploring and making many mistakes. I had begun by selecting a premade template for my animation that Moovly encourages beginners to use at their aid. I was initially thoroughly disappointed when I discovered that all the template provided was actually a background texture/colour when it had shown the template with a font, colour scheme, and picture (the main reasons I chose it at all) which the Moovly user in reality, had to find from the innumerable options the website provides. As though to put further salt on the wound, after a period of time, the template's background texture expired and left me with a video which was half one colour, half another and no matter what I attempted, I could not extend the duration of the template until I had been working on this tutorial for a very long expanse of time. As for how I managed to do this at all, I stumbled across the solution, accidentally dragging a bar in the 'timings box' which again, Moovly had failed to explain properly in their tutorial.

I had formerly planned on adding subtle background music to my animation, knowing that videos always appear bare and unfinished without it but the website didn't provide this option unless you used music from your own 'personal library'. Not having any music I deemed suitable for my video, and knowing that when I had attempted to record a voice over to the animation from my personal library, it hadn't allowed this option, I decided that I'd leave this be and have an unfinished feel to my video.

At this point in making my tutorial, I had become very unwilling to exert the effort I had originally been putting in as I'd been working on a video - one that I wasn't particularly pleased with, or proud of - for several hours, too many hours, simply because the website was so outrageously incompetent. Once I had eventually reached the end of the dubious process Moovly had put me through, and began converting the video into a file which I would be able to upload to Google Classrooms, I discovered one had to pay for any option better than the 'Standard Quality', and pay further should you want to have a more discreet Moovly watermark. Far from parting any money with this website that had wasted such large amounts of my time, I clicked continue with all the most basic options provided in compiling the video and somewhat subduedly uploaded my video to the assignment page.

On a brighter note however, I do feel that I conveyed the purpose of the Bubble Sort Algorithm and how to execute it. I do regret not having included the specific terminology such as 'secondary pass' etc., but I couldn't recall it and no website I researched it on provided any help. I hadn't known what an algorithm was previously, and definitely a particular example of one, so I feel as though that was a minor triumph despite the many downfalls.

I think that the Bubble Sort Algorithm has its advantages to it and is simple for our usage but is not a practical sorting algorithm when n is large. It also had the ability to detect when the list is sorted built into it which is useful and I would use it in the future rather than other, more complex sorting algorithms.