Cartoons & Comics
Another quick and easy way to grab your students' attention in the library or classroom is with a cartoon or comic! While cartoons and comics have always been popular, they have started to become more accepted as literature by librarians everywhere with the rise of graphic novels. Students enjoy reading cartoons and comics and with the three sites featured below, they can easily make one as well. This is a great outlet for student self expression and a way for teachers to assess learning in a way that students will enjoy!
Toon Doo
Toon Doo is the first comic creating website I tried. It is easy to create an account, simply needing a username, password, and email address. Creating my first comic was very simple. I was able to choose the layout I wanted and from there I could choose all the additional features. I was able to search for backgrounds and props for my comic. I will say that the results were limited and I found that I struggled at times finding exactly what I was looking for. With that, I think this would be a good website for beginners and my elementary students to use at it might not be as overwhelming with too many choices. When I finished my comic, it was easy to save. I could then choose if I wanted my Toon Doo to be public, private, or to share with specific people through email (which would be great for students to share with their teacher to easily see and grade).
Here is the Toon Doo I created:
Pixton
Pixton is another free comic strip website that users can sign up for. One great addition to Pixton is that it allows users to sign up with Google, making sign up faster and easier. With Pixton users can choose what type of comic they would like to create: a comic strip, storyboard, graphic novel, and more. There are templates that can be chosen which makes starting the comic easier or users can start from scratch. There were so many different options that can be done with this program, even small things like changing your character's color palette and facial expressions. At times, it was a little overwhelming for me with too many choices, so I probably would only have my 5th graders give this program a try. There was a tutorial that was helpful to show users how to create their comics and get ideas. When my comic was complete, it was easy to save and was then available for me print, download, embed, or add to Twitter instantly.
Check out my Pixton Comic Strip:
Make Beliefs Comix
Another free website to use to create comics is Make Beliefs Comix. Unlike Toon Doo and Pixton, Make Beliefs Comix does not require you to sign up, users can simply go to their website and start making. I was happily surprised to see how diverse the characters were on this website. So many different types of people were available to be chosen including characters with disabilities and that were wheelchair-bound. On the main page there are also suggestions on how to use this website with students that have special needs. I do think that this website was the most challenging to use and it gave the least amount of options. I already had an idea of what I wanted to do before I got started and it was hard to achieve my desired comic with the limitations. When I was finished with my comic, my only choices were to print, download the comic as an image, or to email the comic to myself or others. In the future, I probably would be least likely to use Make Beliefs Comix again and would probably use Pixton instead.
Here is the comic I created:
I think it is important that teachers know the benefits to using comics and cartoons in the classroom. As I said before, it is a great way for self expression for students and students can make comics to show understanding of a concept. Teachers can also use comics to get their students attention, hook them into a lesson, and make their lessons more exciting. I would share comics with teachers in one of my monthly "Technology Tuesday" lessons where teachers can come to the library to learn about a new and exciting tech tool.
Toon Doo
Toon Doo is the first comic creating website I tried. It is easy to create an account, simply needing a username, password, and email address. Creating my first comic was very simple. I was able to choose the layout I wanted and from there I could choose all the additional features. I was able to search for backgrounds and props for my comic. I will say that the results were limited and I found that I struggled at times finding exactly what I was looking for. With that, I think this would be a good website for beginners and my elementary students to use at it might not be as overwhelming with too many choices. When I finished my comic, it was easy to save. I could then choose if I wanted my Toon Doo to be public, private, or to share with specific people through email (which would be great for students to share with their teacher to easily see and grade).
Here is the Toon Doo I created:
Pixton
Pixton is another free comic strip website that users can sign up for. One great addition to Pixton is that it allows users to sign up with Google, making sign up faster and easier. With Pixton users can choose what type of comic they would like to create: a comic strip, storyboard, graphic novel, and more. There are templates that can be chosen which makes starting the comic easier or users can start from scratch. There were so many different options that can be done with this program, even small things like changing your character's color palette and facial expressions. At times, it was a little overwhelming for me with too many choices, so I probably would only have my 5th graders give this program a try. There was a tutorial that was helpful to show users how to create their comics and get ideas. When my comic was complete, it was easy to save and was then available for me print, download, embed, or add to Twitter instantly.
Check out my Pixton Comic Strip:
Make Beliefs Comix
Another free website to use to create comics is Make Beliefs Comix. Unlike Toon Doo and Pixton, Make Beliefs Comix does not require you to sign up, users can simply go to their website and start making. I was happily surprised to see how diverse the characters were on this website. So many different types of people were available to be chosen including characters with disabilities and that were wheelchair-bound. On the main page there are also suggestions on how to use this website with students that have special needs. I do think that this website was the most challenging to use and it gave the least amount of options. I already had an idea of what I wanted to do before I got started and it was hard to achieve my desired comic with the limitations. When I was finished with my comic, my only choices were to print, download the comic as an image, or to email the comic to myself or others. In the future, I probably would be least likely to use Make Beliefs Comix again and would probably use Pixton instead.
Here is the comic I created:
I think it is important that teachers know the benefits to using comics and cartoons in the classroom. As I said before, it is a great way for self expression for students and students can make comics to show understanding of a concept. Teachers can also use comics to get their students attention, hook them into a lesson, and make their lessons more exciting. I would share comics with teachers in one of my monthly "Technology Tuesday" lessons where teachers can come to the library to learn about a new and exciting tech tool.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI had similar experiences as you. I found Pixton to be my favorite option- so many choices and possible products! I am a middle school teacher, so I know my kids would love that one the most. However, you make a great point about it being overwhelming for younger students. I hadn't considered that! Your comics were amazing! I love the librarian theme- especially the one about the nightmare. That would happen to me! Great blogging!
Courtney Walker
I agree that ToonDoo is great for elementary students. By having fewer choices, it may not be so overwhelming. This focus could be more on the story than the details.
ReplyDeleteI also found MakeBeliefComix the most difficult to use because of the limited options. However, I agree that the diversity in characters such as offering characters with disabilities was a plus.
Michelle,
ReplyDeleteI found Pixton to be the most enjoyable for me, but I agree that it is more appropriate for the older students than the younger kids. The character choices were not as kid friendly either. I also found Make Belief Comics to be the least enjoyable. The background variety was lacking, so it was hard to create what I wanted. By the way, I love the smell of new books too! HAHAHA!
It is funny what librarians' nightmares are made of. When I was in the classroom, my nightmare was arriving really late on the first day of school.
ReplyDeleteI had several students in our campus try Makebeliefscomix.com. It is hassle-free because they don't need to sign-up and forces them to create a draft before they start creating their comic strip because if they log-out, they would lose their work. Of the three, ToonDoo strikes a balance. It is not too limited nor complicated.