Cartoons and Comics

I can remember opening the Houston Chronicle and grabbing the comics every Sunday morning, being careful not to crinkle or mess up the rest of the paper for my grandparents. I would read my favorites and clip them to save. I remember using the Sunday comics to use a wrapping paper for birthday parties. There were birthdays thatI received presents wrapped in comics and I knew exactly who it was from, my Aunt Deirdra. I think at one point I used comics for my textbook covers.

Now, I view comics digitally through the Chronicle, random sites, and Pinterest. I even use comics in my classroom the traditional way, paper and pencils. When we finish a novel, my students pick a scene that they favored and they create that scene within a comic strip. They must provided dialogue, illustrations, color, and a minimum number of slides when doing this project.

As our campus moves to its second year as a one to one campus, having students create their comic strips digitally is the next step in their presentations. I looked at three different sites and each have their pro's and con's that I found.

ToonDoo

 The first site I looked at was ToonDoo. There are many features that students can use when creating comic through ToonDoo. Different figures, items, and sceneries are available for the user to produce into a storyline. Figures can be manipulated to change positions, directions, rotate, or experssions to meet the need of the comic. Characters can include celebrities, animals, anime, cartoons. Students can opt to post their comic on Facebook, Twitter, or print it to post within the classroom, home, binders, or locker. Students can download their creations to save as well. Others online can respond to the comic strip, whether or not they liked it and communicate with the author of the comic strip.


I did not find many issues with the site when creating the comic. Once students understand the icons and images they want to use, they will be able to easily create their comics and publish them. I think the only thing I came into was remembering where I found an image.

I thik this site would b good to use for my ESL/LEP students with practicing vocabulary and practice writing a complete sentence. I think if they see their work, they will feel accomplished.

By amouton34 | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Pixton

The second site that I looked into was Pixton. I must admit, I liked this one the best out of the three. I was able to manipulate the positions of the characters more, add more facial features and emotions, and was offered premade backgrounds. I was also offered more slides to create either a comic strip, story board, or a graphic novel. My students would love this. I could take advantage of this site with having the students create story boards for short stories we read throughout the year to creating a graphic novel for a narrative or maybe even for incoming 7th graders. I can see it right now, identifying the parts of the plot diagram for Langston Hughes, "Thank You, M'am" and laying it out into a story board or a graphic novel during the first six weeks of school.

The only thing I thought was a minor issue was having to upgrade if I wanted to download my comic., but it was easly to save and share it.

Make Beliefs Comix

The last site that I looked at was Make Beliefs Comix. This one was not very appealling to me. Although the images and scenery were simplistic, the images and characters provided were very limited. I felt like I could not be as creative with this site and not manipulate my characters and scenery as needed. I found it hard, if not impossible, to add color to the scenery or characters. If I wanted to save the comic, I could do so by emailing it or saving it to my USB. This site did not allow me to come back to it later.

I do not see my students using this site. They would find it boring and I feel like I woul dspend more time trying to motivate them then actually creating a comic strip. I could have the students practice with creating a comic strip before moving on to Pixton or ToonDoo.

Tellagami

Using the basic app, I was able to create a short gami on a book I read yesterday for another class. The site was very easy to use, but with the basic app, very few options were available when changing the character's clothing, scenery, and emojis. I am sure if I were to upgrade it or even use the educators edition, I would be able to use so much more, like more time to record and appearance of the character. I liked the idea of creating a character and recording my own voice.

It was easy to share, email, or get the ebedded link. I think my students will like this app on their tablets. We could use this type of presentation to practice vocabulary for ESL/LEP students, stating the main idea of a passage, giving book talks that could be made into a QR Code in the library (definitely going to do this). I might even have my students try this when they are working on presenting their case on which death theory Edgar Allan Poe died of (they really get into this each year).

 

Above is an example of a quick 30 second book talk of October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard by Leslea Newton.

Many of the options presented are great ideas for students to present their understandings and final results of an assignment. It will be interesting to see what the creative minds of 14 year olds will come up with using these means of digital comics and cartoons.