Cartoons and Comics

Cartoons and comics are fun and creative tools used to teach students different subjects. They are now been used in education. Using comic strips allow students to use their imagination and in the process, they become creative writers. They also learn to express themselves and practice communication skills. Many people use cartoons and comics to create comic strips of everyday life experiences. These experiences also help create new ones. Imagination is what brings these characters to life. I brought some funny characters to life by using MakeBeliefsComix, ToonDoo, and Pixton. These sites were easy to use and were a lot of fun. I sure enjoyed this experience.

MakeBeliefsComix

The MakeBeliefsComix did not require for me to create an account. I logged in straight into the website, clicked begin comic and within seconds I was creating my comic strip. This site provided directions on every icon. It provided a few characters, but enough to start a comic strip. It provided easy to follow directions on how to choose characters, how to work the panel prompts, how to use arrows to select emotions, choose object scenes, and to choose background colors. On the left hand-side panel it provided icons that helped scale, move, and flip the characters, words, and the speech balloons. It only allowed me to create a three square layout comic strip. The only thing I didn’t like about this site, it doesn’t save the comic strips. I saved mine by forwarding it to my email. I found the site to be extremely user friendly and the directions were of great help. Students would definitely and easily enjoy using this comic site. Check out my comic strip I created on MakeBeliefsComix: “Drama Queen”

ToonDoo

On the ToonDoo site, I had to create an account. It was extremely easy to register, and within seconds I was logged in with the user name I had created when I registered. The layouts were easy to choose from. I chose the three square layout. I chose the characters, but it was challenging as this site provided a lot of characters to choose from, which made it hard to decide. It provided different backgrounds to choose from, different props, different speech bubbles, and different body movements and facial expressions that can be added to the each character. This site provided a lot of “everything” to help you create your comic strip. Everything on this site is fully colored. As I created my comic strip, I learned to use the tool bar and its icons on my own. There were no directions as I clicked on each icon. I learned to change colors, flip, rotate, shrink, rotate, and delete characters, images, and words based on the previous comic site I had used since the icons and images were similar. I used the same background throughout my comic strip and all I had to do was click on the corner of the template and check off the corner square and in seconds the next template was duplicated or clone. This site also allowed me to change posture and face emotions on my characters. Even though there aren’t directions on each icon, I believe students would still be able to create comic strips using this site. It was simple to use. The ToonDoo comic site does provide option to save your comic strip. It allowed me to save my comic strip on the site, on my account. Check out my ToonDoo comic strip: “Tennis Dream”

Pixton

Pixton requires an account, therefore I created one. I couldn’t access my account right away. I had to wait for the Pixton site to send me an email confirmation message and then I verified my account via the Pixton’s message. I clicked on new comic and right away the site offered two options: Beginner Comics or Advanced. I chose beginner since I’m new at this. It allowed me to choose from different characters and different settings. It also provided me with the opportunity to create my comic strip by using one, two, or three characters. I chose three characters. After that I clicked on begin comic and a template was created with the three characters and the setting I had chosen. The layout also had the speech bubbles ready for me to type in the characters’ words. I doubled clicked on characters and speech boxes to move them from different locations. Pixton also provided me with icons to change characters’ body postures and facial expressions. Pixton does allow for the comic strip to be saved. I saved it privately and the site generated a link for viewing my comic strip, but I still took a screenshot of it. Check out the comic strip I created on Pixton: “The Missing Book”

 How to use cartoons and comics with students?

I read on some excellent ideas on how to use cartoons and comics with my students. I believe the students will find it fun, interesting, and most important it will be a new learning experience. I believe I may use cartoons and comic strips to teach and practice beginning, middle, and end reading skills. Students perhaps could summarize stories by focusing only on beginning, middle, and the end. They could create a comic strip of the story’s beginning, middle, and end. I would like to have students create an autobiographical comix about them at the beginning of the school year to break the ice. They could also tell me about three major events that they experienced during the summer using a comic website, perhaps MakeBeliefsComix since it doesn’t require an account. I perhaps could also have students create a comix using new vocabulary words. The characters in the comic strips could be using the new vocabulary words. Another way students could use cartoons and comics could be by having them write three ways on how they would like to improve in reading. I would have students create a comic strip explaining their three goals. These three sites were really good, but I think I would continue to use MakeBeliefsComix using the school computers. I really like that this site provided detailed directions on almost every icon. Students do need detailed directions and MakeBeliefsComix sure meets this need.