Welcome
Hello again. It's time for another post to share for another pretty interesting topic. Cartoons and comic strips. Cartoons are something that many of us of fond memories of waking up early on Sunday mornings to catch are favorite shows. Cartoons in my defintion are animated drawings to show something fun and humorous to the audience. Comic strips are often used in the comics section of newspapers to entertain or inform audiences of something in a visually appealing manner.
So today, I will be trying out different platforms to create my own comic strips! Hope you enjoy!
Comics
First site is: https://edu.pixton.com/educators
My Comic!
Pros
- Able to choose many backgrounds for different settings
- Add customizable characters: change their appearance by outfit, skin color and hair style
- Change character expressions and actions for dynamic scenes!
- Edit text boxes by thought, speech, shout or whisper
- User friendly
- Add panels to continue the story
- Includes a School/District Yearly volume discount plan to use for your campus or district to use for classroom activities
Cons
- Not able to change the set backgrounds
- Unable to download finished comic in free version
- Unable to print finished comic in free version
- Sharing option only available in paid version
- Need to buy the Classroom Monthly ($24.99 per month) or Classroom Yearly ($99 annually) if you want student access and more premium content
My Comic!
Pros
- Extremely easy to use
- Templates are helpful guides
- Beginner friendly
- Templates come with pre-made text boxes and users can choose from some stock photos
- Can upload your own images
- Choose different fonts and colors for backgrounds
- Very affordable pricing
Cons
- Templates are limited in free version
- Unable to save in free version
- Certain texts are available in paid version
- Backgrounds are limited in free version
- Free version only includes basic fonts, templates, etc.
Lastly, the final platform is: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/
My Comic!
Pros
- Able to add many panels to continue the story
- Has a variety of backgrounds to choose from
- Has a variety of characters to choose from
- Able to select prompts for ideas or to get started
- Flip or scale characters and text boxes to fit into the panels
- Characters have some poses to choose from for dynamic scenes
Cons
- Limited variety of characters
- Limited variety of expressions and poses for characters
- Not a lot of customizable options for characters or backgrounds
- Need to edit scenes in panel
- Need to adjust scale and directions characters are facing
- Needs a slight learning curve to use
Ranking
Best in Affordability: MakeBeliefsComix
2nd best: Fotojet
Best in User-friendliness: Fotojet
2nd best: MakeBeliefsComix
Best in Variety: Pixon
2nd best: MakeBeliefsComix
Best Overall?
Winner: MakeBeliefsComixReason: Most affordable (free). Quite user-friendly and gives the user ability to share or save comic without needing a paid account. Has a good amount of variety and the user can add panels to tell their story. One downside can be that the user is limited to 18 panels for one comic, but comics are meant to be short so 18 panels seems like a reasonable amount.
Conclusion
Overall, it was a fun experience to try making different comics from different platforms. I got to try platforms I had never heard of before and had to experiment a lot since I never used these sites before. The good thing was most of the sites were pretty easy to use without needing a lot of time to learn how to use the platform. It was really fun to tell stories in comic strips with pictures and less words. This is a fun activity to have students retell their favorite book or favorite scenes in a comic strips. I would also use it for a summarization activity, it would be interesting to see what creative ways students come up with a comic strip of their own summary of a story. It can also be used as an activity to explain a math problem or how-to guides as well. I would also like to use comic strips for student introductions for beginning of the year activities.
As for sharing them with teachers when I become a librarian, I would share the platform. through a link/QR Code with all the staff via email and printed flyers. I would recommended teachers to share the link through Google Classroom or Remind for their students too. I would also do a professional development training on the platform for CPE hours and train teachers how to use the site and share with students. I would also have the platform be available through an accessible site (my school district uses Clever) where students only need to sign in once and be able to access the platform without having to type a whole web address.
It was such an interesting thing to try out and there's so many ways to implement comic strips into the classroom and library! There's so many ideas out there.
Your review of Pixton and the comic you made added to my understanding of the program in two ways:
ReplyDelete(1) I didn't even think about the fact that the background themselves couldn't be edited from the image selected. Being able to customize these would definitely be an added bonus.
(2) I love that you used thought bubbles to show the character's inner thinking and speech bubble to show dialogue. While this was not something I included in my own comic, it added great value to your visual presentation!
You did an excellent job creating a comic using Make Beliefs Comix. I personally had a very hard time with this program and found it to be frustrating a majority of the time. However, seeing that you were able to create such a put-together finished product is giving me some encouragement to give it another try, especially because of all the additional resources available through this platform.
Finally thank you for providing some excellent suggestions for ways to use comics with students. I really like the idea of having them create a comic to retell their favorite scene and can see so many different benefits to adapting my typical assignments for this literacy skill.
Hi Alexa! I really enjoyed your comics! I really like the variety and the creativity! I think providing a quick professional development on ways in which to utilize comics in the classroom is a wonderful idea! I think the teachers would think so as well. It's a unique way for students to show their mastery of a skill! Thanks for sharing, Alexa!
ReplyDeleteFirst, I really enjoy the layout you use on your blog site. It is so nice and welcoming without feeling like everything is clustered together. It gives me a Pinterest vibe for sure!
ReplyDeleteWhile working with these three programs, I also found the down side to Pixton of not being able to really alter the backgrounds much at all. I felt like Pixton was super easy to work with but not many options on being able to really personalize the background. Thank you for giving several suggestions on how to use comics in the educational setting, this should be a professional development requirement with our technology use in today's time.
Comics seemed like they came naturally to you. I enjoyed your comics that you made. The one you chose as your top platform is the one I actually had trouble with. I think I need more practice. I had a difficult time trying to add conversation bubbles where I needed them. I've noticed that when I have trouble, the students can do a lot better job than I can. I would need to practice making these, so I felt more confident showing it to teachers/students.
ReplyDeleteI like your idea to use comics to have students explain things such as a math problem or the beginning of the year. I really enjoyed Pixton but I was not able to download it to share in my blog once I created it. But like you, I enjoyed learning how to use the comic strips. I like that you list many of your findings and as we have learned that there are different ways. We have learned that it is okay to accept different types of work from students. And of course, the little dog is the best!
ReplyDelete