Give VOICE to your cartoons

I've always loved using comics in the classroom, and now it's become even more fun with the possibility to add audio to my comics strips.

http://www.pixton.com/


I learned about it from Kevin's Meandering Mind (blog). Unfortunately, adding the audio layer is not a feature available for the free PIXTON version. You have to sign up for PIXTON FOR SCHOOLS in order to be able to do that. Well, at least they offer a 30-day free trial so let's see if I can get my students to create comic strips during that period.

This was my first trial with the aim to welcome my students to our EDMODO group. After creating your comic strip you can publish it on a website, like I'm doing right now, or by clicking on the Edmodo icon, this way it's automatically attached to your message to an edmodo group of your choice.

To listen to the recordings, hover the mouse over the SPEECH BUBBLES and click on the PLAY button.

Strategies for using COMICS in the classroom

I've recently fallen in love with comic creators and its various possibilities of use in the classroom.

This WONDERFUL presentation shared below, not only brings several links to comic creator sites but also provides suggestions for teachers.

Tap into the World of Comics Primary School version

View more presentations from S. Hendy.

These are some of the COMIC CREATOR sites suggested by S.Hendy

• http://www.toondoo.com/
• http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/
• http://www.professorgarfield.org/comics_lab_extreme/
• http://www.garfield.com/fungames/comiccreator.html
• http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/
• http://myths.e2bn.org/story_creator/
• http://www.bam.gov/sub_yourLife/yourlife_comiccreator.html
• http://www.pixton.com/uk/
• http://www.creaza.com/
• http://www.chogger.com/
• http://comiqs.com/editor/
• http://www.comeeko.com/
• http://www.pikikids.com/
• http://superherosquad.marvel.com/create_your_own_comic
• http://cpbherofactory.com/
• http://www.scholastic.com/charlottesweb/comic/index.htm
• http://www.scholastic.com/goosebumpsgraphix/makeyourown/index.htm
• http://www.scholastic.com/dogslife/createtale.htm

Comic Strips with WRITECOMICS.com

This is the easieast tool I've seen to create comic strips. I've been planning to create a comic strip with my students in class and then ask them to create mini dialogues with language learned that day for their own comic strips. http://writecomics.com/

You don't even need an account. First you click on the characters, then the backgroun, choose a speech bubble, type in the text (click SUBMIT WORD) and when you've finished click FINISHED and you've provided with a link. It's that easy.

:( It's a pity they don't offer us an embed but you can always grab a screenshot and publish it.

These are some comic strips created by a colleague of mine, Angela Gonçalves, to present modals of deduction.
http://writecomics.com/gen/3583.html

 To learn how to use it, watch this TUTORIAL:

Comic creator: BITSTRIPS

I've just read about Bitstrips and decided to give it a try.



First of all, you create your own avatar, which can be included in your comic strips as I did in mine. Then, you can start creating your comic strip. There's a variety of characters, scenes, furniture, props and effects you can choose from.

After creating your comic strip, publish it and click SHARE to get the embed code. YOu can publish the strip viewer , like I did or grab the image for the comic strip (found it too big for my template so I took a screenshot instead).

Watch a video about BITSTRIPS FOR SCHOOL

Comiqs and Pinpix

Wanted to try out two webtools I found recently.

The first one is http://comiqs.com which helps you create comiqs using your own photos. This tool might be really good to create stories. The nice thing is that you can grab the embed code to publish it in blogs. PROBLEM: my pictures were too big for the comic, still haven't figured out how to shrink them in the site.



PINPIX lets you create effects on photos, create a video with pre-selected templates and create slideshows. DISADVANTAGE: There's no embed code for the videos so you can't publish the player online, it only provides you w/ the link. The site is in Portuguese.

This is a Fotopin with a frame and animations from a typical celebration in Brazil in June and July.

Video: The Zoo

This is one more video made by 11 year-old Brazilian students who are learning English with Flávia (a colleague) at the language institute where we work. Students drew the comics throughout the semester and then recorded the audio. This one is called "The Zoo".

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=KSSbY5XapHA

Project: COMICS

A colleague of mine, Flavia, devised a very nice project she developed with her EFL students in Brazil (11- 12 year-old students) who are beginning to learn English.

At the end of every class, she let her students in pairs or groups of 3, work on a comic story they were creating throughout the semester. Each story had 18 images with dialogues.

Now, at the end of the semester, she had students practise the dialogues and then recorded them. My contribution? Well, I just cut out the images and synchronized them all with windows movie maker. So as you can see, it was a project carried out slowly where students were able to use the language they had just learned. Congratulations to Flavia and her students.