Creating a cartoon or comic strip for teaching purposes sounds like a pretty good idea. However, no one tells you how much work actually goes into creating such cartoons or comic strips. Luckily, we have a couple of options these days. I was able to create three comic strips using cartoons to tackle a very important and meaningful theme, bullying. I am currently dealing with this type of behavior as it entails my daughter being picked on and I've tried to use these strips to help her get through this time. In doing so, I thought about the countless others that have to deal with this type of bullying behavior in schools. Maybe if we can create these types of cartoons and comic strips, students will feel more at ease in talking about the severity of the subject. I would personally like to use this type of format and help students create comic strips to bring to light subjects that may be hard for them to talk about. On the other hand, these strips can be used for humor and can be used as a writing center where students can create for the sake of creating.
The first comic strip I created was using ToonDoo. ToonDoo gave me an option to create my own "toon" and have it express emotions and fill in either a dialogue or thought bubble. This was very helpful, but I had trouble loading images as I would see gears turning as it generated and took a while to do so. There were backgrounds that could be adapted to the situation, but again, it was hard to get all of them to load. Overall, I would say it was easy to use, it is easy enough for students to use as well. ToonDoo also allowed me to save the strip as a download, i.e. JPEG and was exceptionally easy to upload to this post. There was plenty to choose from, just make sure you have time to wait or have an amazingly fast Internet provider. I would definitely allow students to use this site as it easy to save and share with the rest of the class or even share with our school's Facebook page.
The second comic strip was created with Pixton. Pixton made it easy to choose the characters, but they seem to lack "personality." I wanted to express the same theme and create a dialogue between two characters and I was a bit limited with space and could hardly manage to get the scene to change. It appeared that the only thing I was able to control was moving the standing character closer or further away from the character that was sitting. This was easy to use and I would allow students to use Pixton, but it's for very basic usage. I would see the benefit being for a writing center and having students create what they've read and bring it "to life" in comic strip form. I did not like that it was limited and had very little variety. The other concern I had was the inability to save the strip in JPEG format, which seems to be the quickest way to upload into my posts. I was being asked to pay in order to save the download. But, I had an a-ha moment and realized that my new favorite toy, SKITCH, could help me out once again. I was able to use SKITCH to "copy" the screen and save it in JPEG format. Pretty nifty, if I do say so myself. I would have to show students how to use SKITCH and/or use the traditional Windows Print Screen option.
My final comic strip was created using MakeBeliefsComix. This was probably my favorite. I was able to definitely apply the background of a school setting, which was what I was going for to tackle the theme. I also liked that there was a variety of "students" that could be inserted into the strip easily. I had a bit of an issue with the dialogue boxes since they took up a great deal of space. Space is definitely an issue when writing a comic strip. I wanted to convey the look of a "bully" and I wanted the dialogue to be quick and easy, but substantial for the amount of boxes I chose. Like the other two, I would allow students to use this site to create and this was also able to saved via download into a JPEG format. I would incorporate MakeBeliefsComix into a lesson because I found that it was easier to create, save, and share. I also think students will like the graphics and not have to put too much into the characters. If they prefer to create from scratch, then ToonDoo is the site for them. I like the idea of using writing centers with these and tackling touch subject matter.
Finally, I created a gami! I said this at school today and people thought I was strange, but I was actually pretty excited about this process. I was intimidated by the idea, but realized it took less than 5 minutes to create. I had already been reading this book to my students, so it was easy to access. I liked that I was able to upload a photo of the book and review it. It was quick, easy, and I used the voice recording instead of the text writing. It was a quick recording option and gave me a few seconds to complete, but that was all I needed. I loved it! I will definitely keep using this and put it into a lesson where students have to create their own gamis.
