Cartoons and Comics

Creating Cartoons and Comics this week has been fun and interesting as I used the three different websites, ToonDoo, Pixton, and Make Beliefs Comix.  This assignment helped me distress during this busy week of STAAR.  All the websites were fun and inventive.  These are excellent tools to help extend your patrons learning in the library and classroom.  Now, my creativity in developing these comics lack much humor, so bare with me.  I say enjoy, or at least humor me. 

Toon Doo
The things I liked about this site was how easy it was to navigate.  I could see elementary students totally grasp it very quickly and take off with their sense of humor.  The cute characters it provided plus the ability to upload your own pictures and manipulate them however you like was a plus.  The add drawing function was helpful for me. 

One thing I wasn't too happy about was having to register for the account and if you would like student account, you would do the same.  I know many sites, require registration, but for a teacher, it's time consuming.

Overall, this was my favorite because of the flexibility it has and its user friendliness.  Regardless of the registration process, I would recommend it to my colleagues. 

Below is my comic on ToonDoo :)

http://www.toondoo.com/cartoon/11056318


Pixton
The pros on this tool were the backgrounds it provided and the the add-ons. It allows you to make comics for almost any classroom subject area.  I also appreciate that you could change the appearance of the characters.  You could change the skin tones, hairstyle, body shapes, and features.  Great for a diverse, culture classroom to use.  One big plus about Pixton was that they offer you 50 free accounts for registering as a teacher.  Hi-five to Pixton for that!!

The one thing it didn't allow me to do was save my comic with my free account.  You would have to upgrade and pay of course.  They provided you with a link to your comic, which is below for you to enjoy.  No permanent image to keep..sorry.  Also, the 50 free accounts for the teacher really benefits elementary teachers, but not so much middle school and secondary teachers.

Over all, if you can afford the upgraded package, I would say this would also be a great site to use.  Students would truly enjoy all the capabilities it has.

https://Pixton.com/ic:vvju9jf5



Make Beliefs Comix

Wow, no registration required!  Very rare of a website to do that.  Kudos to Make Beliefs Comix.  Now, it was a fairly basic site.  Provided limited choices for characters, backgrounds, etc.  I made the comic that follows, saved and moved on.
One thing through the process that I learned was that once you're done with your comic and close it, you won't be able to edit it anymore.  You can't go back to it and change it.  So, you just need to make sure that all spelling, colors, characters, and other added things are exactly what you want.

Comics and cartoons have really evolved in the best possible way for the benefit of teaching in the classroom.  Teaching with pictures allows students not only to read the words given, but also the pictures that come with them.  The reader has to discern much information from the images.  Identifying the setting is simple, but more difficult would be answering questions such as...What are the character's actions and reactions?, What is their body language saying?  Cartoons can seem silly and babyish, but they can serve a big purpose in a classroom.  They are perfect for teaching inferencing, a skill many students struggle with.  With the use of these websites, we can allow our students to become the creators and have them create some of their own.  I'm sure they would enjoy it very much and at the same time learn a lot from them.