Cartoons and Comics

    Cartoons and Comics are the coolest thing out there, why did I not stumble upon this before. Oh that's right, I keep forgetting that up until a couple of weeks ago I was very nervouse about venturing into the brave new TECH WORLD...lol. I really enjoyed creating the three comic strips below, and would encourage their use in any library or classroom. If I as a digital immigrant can master then, it is going to be a piece of cake for any student, especially because most of them are digital natives.

     As a future librarian, I can foresee hosting a Tech Tuesday on cartoons and comic strips. I think it would be beneficial for teachers to learn about this technology. Reading lessons would never be the same, students could use these comic strip as plot diagrams, or create a comic strip to infer what will happen next. At my Tech Tuesday teachers would be exposed to samples of comics that would be relevent to a variety of subject, and then they would work in groups create their own. Check out by three cartoons below, I hope you enjoy reading them and much as I enjoyed creating them.

ToonDoo:

In order to create the cartoon above, I used ToonDoo. It was very easy to subscribe to the website. Once I confirmed my email, I was ready to get started. I have to say that this was my favorite out of the three, it made creating comic strips a breeze. It did not provide a tutorial, but everything was very userfriendly. ToonDoo provides templates for you, so that you can decide your comic strip layout before you create it. ToonDoo is the perfect website to use if you like to add a personal touch to your creation. I loved how you could choose from a variety of backgrounds, talk balloons, and characters. It had so many to choose from, it took me a long time to create the comic strip. I wanted to get the perfect characters to go with my short story. There is also an option to upload your own images, but I did not see the need to do so, since they provide more than enough of everything to add the details that you need. It was also very easy to save and share with a friend. I would definitely recommend this to everyone. Toon Doo also gives you the option to print, which would be very useful in the classroom.

Pixton:

Pixton was very easy to subscribe to, although getting he flash player to work with this website was  a little confusing. Pixton did provide a short video that walked you through the steps in order to get it running. ToonDoo let you start the flash player from the click of a button, so I was a little surprised at all the extra steps I had to take for this particular website. Pixton has a lot to offer when it comes to the characters. I really liked that you are able to change their facial expressions, position character head, arms, legs, and body any way you want. I think this feature adds a lot to the comic strips. Pixton also offers a lot of backgrounds and prompts that you can use creating your strips. One of the things that I really like was that Pixton did provide a tutorial when you first logged in, and provided tips that were very useful when creating my first strip. What I did not like was that you can only log on to create a comic strip a certain amount of time, before it forces you to log on for you 15 day free trial. Although it is a very useful website, I do not think it would be good for the classroom unless you are will pay for the subscription. It was very easy to save my comic strip, and it even provides you with a link to share your cartoon. Here is the link to my cartoon if you would like to see it on the pixton website:https://Pixton.com/ic:av1kr3pb

MakeBeliefscomix:

MakesBeliefscomix was a very simplistic website that did not require you to sign up for a free trial. As an educator I really liked this option. It allowed you to create the comic, print them, save them to your device, and email them to yourself or a friend. As a classroom teacher, I really liked that students would be able to save a copy to their devices, this would make it really easy for me to grade. The backgrounds, words, characters, and propt that this website had were very simplistic. You did n ot have a lot of variety, but it did give you the option to type in your own word balloons. I think MakeBeliefscomix was very easy to use, and any elementary student could use it, especially the lower grades. I would not recommend it for junior high or high school students, because it does not have a lot of variety. In the end it did the job, and I can see my self using this app, even though I really liked ToonDoo.