Who doesn’t love a good comic? They can be just as fun (and
useful!) as an educational tool as they are in our free time. This week, I checked out some free comic
creation websites, but before I get into reviewing them, I want to talk about some
ways that comics can be used for learning in a classroom setting. There are a
lot of ways that educators can incorporate creating comics to support or
demonstrate learning. Makebeliefscomics.com is a free comic-creation website
with lots of lesson plans and educational ideas on the topic. Some of my
favorite suggestions of theirs include:
·
Using comics to write an autobiography – this
can be done as a writing prompt or as an icebreaker at the beginning of the
year
·
Using comics to practice new vocabulary words
correctly
·
Making a comic diary – writing comics that
reflect your own life frequently and collecting them in one place
·
Creating comics on any topic as a group to work
on collaboration skills
·
Writing comics in a foreign language that
students are studying
·
Creating comics that comment on local or
national politics
·
Using comics to imagine a literary character’s
perspective
These are just a few simple ways that the creation of comics
could be used in the classroom. As you can see, this fun idea applies to all
sorts of subjects from Language Arts to Government to Foreign Language.
MAKEBELIEFSCOMICS.COM
This comic-making website does not require registration
which is a big bonus when working with students. That simple registration page
can sometimes take forever for students to figure out! Creation of comics is
quick and easy. You are able to pick your character and then select from about
4 choices of emotions. This gives you some flexibility in character expression.
They have a decent amount of props, backgrounds, and characters to choose from,
but some of them don’t go together. For instance, some characters/backgrounds
are black and white while others are colored.
Once a comic has been created, it cannot be saved through
the website. Students have the option to either print their comic or email it.
I personally took a screenshot of the comic I created. This could be a problem
in using this with students since many don’t have a functional email and most
schools don’t have color printers available for free, however I felt that
taking a screenshot of my comic did the trick and students could easily do the
same.
Another bonus of this website, even if an educator isn’t
using it with their students, is that they have a lot of articles with cool
ideas about how to use comics. There are ideas like those I listed above geared
toward educators, but they also have ideas for homeschool, lesson plans, and
writing prompts.
Here is my makebeliefscomics.com comic:
TOONDOO
I did not like the initial set up of their website. It was
really busy with bright colors and graphics everywhere, and it just didn’t seem
very professional. I found that it wasn’t as easy to navigate as the other two
comic-creation websites I visited.
There were options to pick layouts with different numbers
and sizes of frames. This option was a little different from the other two
websites that simply had the option to add panels as the creator went along. I
was disappointed even in naming my comic- they don’t allow for many characters
and my desired title “A Day in the Life” was too long. I wasn’t impressed with
the background options available, so I made my comic have abstract backgrounds.
I couldn’t figure out how to share my comic that I created, though ToonDoo does
give users the option to print the page. I simply took a screen shot of my
comic to save it. Overall, I didn’t like the interface or graphics of this
website. I found it very childlike and did not feel it helped me to produce a
professional looking comic.
I did find one plus to using ToonDoo, though. The option is
available to upload your own photographs for your comic. This might be useful
if students wanted to act out the comic and take pictures of it, then upload
and add their own captions and word bubbles.
Here is the comic that I created using ToonDoo:
PIXTON
This was my favorite comic-creator by far! The registration
process was quick and painless with tutorials available to walk users through
each step, from adding a title, to selecting a character. To keep the creation
process moving quickly, users can create and customize a character and then
give them a name, so it is easy to have the same character on multiple panels.
Speaking of which, figuring out how to add a panel to my slide was the only
thing that took me any time at all.
The comics that you can produce on Pixton are of really
professional quality in my opinion. They offer a really wide variety of
characters, all customizable, as well as poses for these characters, and tons
of backgrounds. I easily made a 6-panel comic and was able to create additional
characters halfway through the process. I would definitely use Pixton with
students for two reasons: first, I think that Pixton gives enough options that
students won’t have to modify their story plan in order to fit the
backgrounds/characters available. Second, I love the professional look of the
comics created on Pixton, and I think that students would feel very proud of
their work using this website.
Here is the comic I created using Pixton (definitely
inspired by true life events!):
I will definitely be using comics in the library and the classroom in the future. Leave a comment below to let me know what you think!
