Comics!

This week I took at a look at a few different websites that allow you to make comic strips. Comic strips are a great way to connect with your students is a fun way. They are also a great way to get the students involved with technology. Students can create a comic strip to help them show their understanding of several different TEKS across all subjects. They can make a comic to represent a story summary, meaning of vocabulary, sequence of events, or just to write their own story. You could have them use a comic strip in social studies and science to show a timeline or the sequence of important events in history or a science experiment. With math the students could make a comic explaining how to complete a math problem. There are several ways to use comics in the classroom. They are not just for the classroom though anyone can make a comic as a way to give students information. In the three examples I created I used one to talk about the Bluebonnet books, and two just about reading in general. You can make a comic to represent library or class rules or procedures. I encourage everyone to explore to possibiliites they can have with comic strips!

I have explored four different comic creating websites this week, ToonDoo.com, Pixton.com, MakeBeliefsComix.com, an on my iPad Tellagami. All of the sites that I explored had positives and negatives.

ToonDoo: http://www.toondoo.com

I really enjoyed this site. I found it to be easy to use and work with and the most Elementary kid friendly. I really like how they offered a variety of characters to choose from and the backgrounds were really nice and colorful. My main flaw with this site was that it took a really time to load everything. I thought that it was just my computer at home but I also tried the computer at school and ran into the same problem. I also wished that they would offer more layout options. The largest number of frames that I found was only four. That is great for most of the project ideas but I wish that there was at least an option for five frames because we teacher our students the, Somebody/someone wanted but so then, strategy for summarizing and that would need five frames. It is not a big problem because they can combine two frames and it will work but just something I was thinking about. Overall great site for kids!

 

<a href='http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/9404590'><img src='http://static.toondoo.com/public/h/k/i/hkirk84//toons/cool-cartoon-9404590.png' border='0' width='450' alt='Reading can...' title='Click to View Full Size Image' ></a><br><div style='font-size: 11px; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-align: left; width: 100%;'>By <a href='http://www.toondoo.com/user/hkirk84'>hkirk84</a> | <a href='http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/9404590'>View this Toon at ToonDoo</a> | <a href='http://www.toondoo.com/'>Create your own Toon</a></div>

 

 

Pixton: https://www.pixton.com

This site was really cool once I figured it all out. The possibilities are endless with this. I do recommend taking the time to watch the How To videos. It will save you time! I would recommend this site to older students and teachers but I think that it might be a little too much for my Pre-K through 4^th graders. I really like how you can change all the backgrounds and the facial expressions and everything about the characters and their movements but wished that they had some younger kid characters that I could have used. For this site you also have to create an account and then wait for approval if you ae creating a school account which is what I did. It did not take long but it was an extra step that the others did not require. Overall once you get the hang of it making the comics will be easy and very useful on this site.

<iframe src="//www.pixton.com/ca/schools/embed/qacow5dq" frameborder="0" width="100%" height="384" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

MakeBeliefsComix: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com

I found this site to be very similar to ToonDoo without as many options. It was very kid friendly and colorful and had some fun characters choices but still was very limited with the backgrounds, and props. It also only allowed you to have three frames. All of the tools were easy to use and I was able to create a comic in no time. I feel like this could be a good site to use for a quick and easy assessment of a lesson for a quick check for understanding. There is not a lot of room to really dig deep and tell a story without each frame being text only. I was also disappointed that you could not create an account because you cannot save your comic after you are finished creating them. Your only option is to print or email them. Overall, this site will be good for short and quick comic strips.

 

Tellagami: Available through the App Store

This was a fun app you can play with if you have an iPad. It is similar to making an avatar where you can choose what the person looks like. You are able to choose the background and record your voice to be able to make the person talk. It was a lot of fun to play with. I have not yet created one to be published yet but I plan on spending more time with it because it was a lot of fun. To be able to fully explore the app you do have to pay to unlock the other options. I hope you explore it and I highly recommend it!

Overall these websites were all great it just depends on how you plan to use the comics and with what age group. If is it for the younger kids I would go with Toon Doo but if it is for middle schoolers or high schoolers I would go with Pixton. If you are looking for something to be done quickly and for a “ticket out the door” type comics then I would go with Make Belief Comix. They all have their strengths and weaknesses.