Friday, November 6, 2015

Cartoons and Comics




Tellagami 

I love love Tellagami! This app is only available for iPad or iPhone. There is a free app but, I purchased the Tellagami edu which has more options when creating your avatar. You can change the hair style, hair color, clothes, shoes,background, and emotions. It is easy to use. All you do is create your avatar and voice record or type your message. You can save and share via social media. It also gives you an embed and video code. I will be using this with students to explain concepts they are learning. For example, they can present a book report and describe the story elements.

ToonDoo

This cartoon creator is easy to use and free. As soon as you create a free account, you can start creating. You first choose your layout which as many options. Next, you get to choose your background, characters, props, text boxes, and clip art. One feature that I really liked was the "search" button that helps you search for any character or item you might be looking for. It was easy to save. You could share with the public, just your friends, or with social media. I was able to get and use the embed code.


Rotation



Pixton


Pixton is a great Web 2.0 tool for visual learners. It makes classroom learning so much fun.Students can create scenes and dialogues for their comics and share with their teachers and friends. Pixton for fun is free. Teachers may purchase for 200 students for $8.99 a month and a school or district may purchase for unlimited students for $1.75 per student/year. Pixton can be used to present book reports or discuss favorite books like the comic below. Comics can also be used to describe the story elements of a story or the may also support other content areas. Once a comic is created, you can either print, download, or share. You may share publicly,  with friends or  through social media.


MakeBeliefsComix

This is another cool comic generator tool that requires no registration. It is free and it is pretty easy to use. Compared two the first two comic generators mentioned, I did not like the fact that you couldn't save to the site. Either you print or save to your own computer. It doesn't give you an embed code either. It doesn't have many backgrounds or objects to insert, but it does have plenty of realistic looking characters. It gives you the option of using three sizes of bubbles. You don't have the option to drag and make them larger or smaller. Overall, it is great to use in the classroom where some students might not have e-mails to register with. They can create and print right away. These comics can be used as informal assessments to check if students' have grasped the concept being taught.






5 comments:

  1. Hi Rebecca,
    MakeBeliefsComix was also my least favorite of the tools. I didn't like mixing black and white pics with the colored ones and not being able to change the colors either. That's just a personal preference though. I also didn't like that you couldn't save it or go back and edit it.

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  2. Rebeca,
    I like your idea of using comics to use as informal assessments to check student's comprehension and incorporating them into lessons. This is a different and fun way to keep students engaged.

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  3. Lisa I agree with your comment above-- reluctance to mix color and black-and-white. Rebecca these were great examples of ways to represent information graphically. Nice work!

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  4. I really liked your Earth comic. Makes me think of my 3rd graders when they study the solar system. Might be a fun activity having kids create a comic around a unit of science.

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  5. I thought your Earth rotation comic was particularly clever. I'll be sharing this with my science team. They have a hard time getting students to remember concepts - I think perhaps comics may assist.

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