Cartoons and Comics in Education
Larger View of the Pixton ComicPixton- This is such a
cool site! There are so many different options for backgrounds and characters.
Anyone can create a character that looks just like themselves or their friends
and family. The features made it easy to create a very high-quality product. Users
can change things like poses, settings, and text displays. It’s remarkable! I
think that students would be able to navigate through it easily. The different formatting
options are laid out logically, and students would be able to go through each
to determine whether they want to include it or not. I would say that this was
the best site, but once the trial period is over you have to pay to be able to
use it. I tried to create a new comic after the trial had ended, and I couldn’t
find anything that I had access to. There is no problem saving the comic, but
sharing is an issue after the trial period ends too. There are a lot of really
great lesson plans, and they even have slides to make teaching how to make
comics easy! They have a rubric for students to assess themselves, printables,
comic starters, and much more. They have an option for a school/district yearly
plan, so I would definitely recommend advocating for this resource or
allocating funds if you have them, but I definitely wouldn’t want teachers to
have to pay for it.
Larger View of the Fotojet ComicFotojet- This was an
interesting site to use for making comics. The only option I found for making a
comic was through the collage feature. The feature showed several different comic-like
collages and gave the user the option to input pictures. I was using the comics
as an assignment, evaluation, or presentation of antonyms. Since the images had
to be uploaded I decided to keep things simple. I just gave different examples
of simple antonyms. I think it would be very difficult to have characters or
backgrounds when all you can really do is upload pictures. This may be a good option
for having students act out stories in a comic book-like way and just add basic
speech bubbles. It might also be a good option when paired with a green screen
and an application that would add different backgrounds. Adding the pictures is
easy and modifying the speech bubbles was also pretty simple. This isn’t a
traditional comic maker, but it could get interesting when paired with other applications.
Several features were only temporarily available with the trial, but there were
enough options when using the free version.
Happy Dog- Dave Murphy-
Flickr- https://flic.kr/p/fcUED
Sleeping cat- Glenn
Crouch- Flickr- https://flic.kr/p/4cMeSc
Cat- DJ Spiess- Flickr www.fermentarium.com
Far sheep- Peter Leth-
Flickr- https://flic.kr/p/7Vosmx
Close sheep- Gunnar
Lundström- Flickr- https://flic.kr/p/577qZH
Larger View of the Make Beliefs Comix ComicMake Beliefs Comix- I
really enjoyed using this site! I love that it’s so easy to sign up for, and that
the features are all free. There are a lot of backgrounds, characters, and
speech bubbles to choose from, but there aren’t that many options to modify these.
Users are able to move, scale, flip, bring to front, and delete any of the
items added into a comic panel. Each character comes with a set amount of poses
and clothing options. It’s easy to save and add as many panels as you need (up
to 18). You are also able to download and share easily. I think that most
students would easily be able to create a wide variety of comics. They even
have simple videos for students to follow while they are learning how to
navigate the site. The site comes with a lot of extra ideas for teachers and
students, too. There are writing prompts, lesson plans, activities, printables,
and so many ideas to modify and add to a unit. This is the best free option by
far! I would recommend it to any teacher or student!
Using Comics With Teachers
I would share comic
making with my teacher colleges by presenting a PD, and showing them the ways
that they could use them in the classroom. I could show them the examples I
made using the antonym TEKS and the examples that are available on the
different comic making websites (the best I found were on Pixton). I would then
have them brainstorm ideas about other ways they can apply this technology. We
could look at TEKS from different subjects, and make products for lessons based
on them. I’m thinking that after the comic makers are presented generally, then
teachers could work in groups and each group could be assigned a different
subject. If all grade level teachers were in the meeting, then they could make
a product based on their grade level. I would volunteer to show students how to
use the websites when they come and visit the library. I know that technology
takes time to learn, and teaching students to use something they can work on in
the library and the classroom is going to make teachers’ lives easier.
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