I was asked to do a bit of research on online comic creation sites.
My first thought was to share the comic book dissertation. Comic book readers have always bristled at the idea that comics are not a true literary form. This just steps up the quality to the nth degree. I grew up reading comics, but I was never as serious as most comic book lovers. I just liked the stories. I hated that they just never seemed to stop. No purpose, no end etc….I watch the movies that come out now, but I don’t get too worked up about them, the stories aren't as good, more snark and less human frailty. The life lessons like “With great power comes great responsibility” Uncle Ben from Spiderman are lost.
Using comics in class.
PIXTON
Pixton is usually recommended as the cadillac of interactive comic sites. It does seem to have more options than the rest. http://www.pixton.com/comic/sbjamh97 This comic took me about five minutes to create from scratch.
When you click the pencil button on the top right
you are taken to a page where you can create a comic or a character. If you create a character it walks you through the process with almost no words necessary, even non-readers can do it.
If you choose create a comic you are immediately given the choice between beginner and advanced. I choose beginner. The beginner process allows you to choose from stock backgrounds, characters, and speech bubbles. The advanced process gives you a blank slate, but allows you to add backgrounds and props just a bit at a time. Unless creating the scenery and characters are important I would stick with the choice of beginner.
I did not examine the pricing structures. For a one off assignment this seems to work fine and allows you to send a link of your work to the teacher. Plus you have a range of privacy options which is great.
MAKEBELIEFSCOMIX
I liked makebelievfscomics, very basic and easy to get started. It took me even less time to make this comic. http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=23207637C1547204
With makebelievefscomix (easy to misspell) you don’t even have to sign in to create a comic. Head to the comix creation page and get started. You have only the basic three panel scheme and you cannot create personalized characters, but for young kids this is the choice. Literally everything for creation is on one page. Click next and you can review, print, and email.
STORYBIRD
Storybird, is not a comic creator, but a book and poem creator. I like it because it allows you to choose great art and then write a story. Or if you like you can upload your own picture prompt. It took me about 15 minutes to create this picture book. http://storybird.com/books/dancing-before-the-sun/?token=rbkaj6m3w3 It is also easy to share, plus commenting with moderation is built in.
As a teacher you can easily create a classroom and add assignments for students (free). Students can write a poem, a short picture book, or a long form chapter book. As a teacher you can choose the type of book they write for their assignment, you can add some pictures or art for a prompt, and set due dates.
GOOGLE DOCS
It is very easy to forget about Google Docs. Opening a blank document it is easy to insert a drawing (which can be a picture with a textbox overlayed). If we create a table and add these drawings into the cells we have a simple comic strip with text boxes instead of thought clouds. The pictures can be a simple hand drawing that we take a picture of with our phones and upload to Google Drive, they can be pictures from the internet, or even snapshots from our webcams.
ICE 2015
ICE is the Illinois Computing Educators annual conference. We are lucky to have such a large and vibrant community of technology educators in Illinois. They also love to share in the knowledge, the notes from almost everyone at ICE2015 can be found here.
Effective Presentations for 21st Century School Leaders
I spent two days this week at the ICE conference in St. Charles, IL. My first all day session was Presentations for Administrators. Lot’s of good suggestions. (shared notes)
Tuesday was three distinct activities. A half day program on Google for students with mild to severe disability, a few short speakers, and EdCampAfterDark.
I tried to put some of these practices into my presentation on helping students make better presentations. A new tool - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires
Google for Students with Mild to Severe Disabilities
I love these Special Ed programs because most of the tools can be used in the regular classroom, they just don’t have to be used. (shared notes)
Speech to text
Nothing on the market today seems to match the accuracy and functionality of Dragon Dictation software. If however, you have a chromebook or don’t want to pay there are still options.
I used my new better presentation skills to create a quick presentation on HaikuDeck about HaikuDeck. A great little web and iPad tool to break out of the worst PowerPoint mistake (too many words on a slide).
THINGS FOUND ON THE WEB
DOE clarifies student privacy policies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deo2F19DK_o
3:36 using websites and parental consent in class.
6:30 using free apps - This site may help with terms of service https://tosdr.org/
The official government website on student privacy http://ptac.ed.gov/.
My first thought was to share the comic book dissertation. Comic book readers have always bristled at the idea that comics are not a true literary form. This just steps up the quality to the nth degree. I grew up reading comics, but I was never as serious as most comic book lovers. I just liked the stories. I hated that they just never seemed to stop. No purpose, no end etc….I watch the movies that come out now, but I don’t get too worked up about them, the stories aren't as good, more snark and less human frailty. The life lessons like “With great power comes great responsibility” Uncle Ben from Spiderman are lost.
Using comics in class.
PIXTON
Pixton is usually recommended as the cadillac of interactive comic sites. It does seem to have more options than the rest. http://www.pixton.com/comic/sbjamh97 This comic took me about five minutes to create from scratch.
When you click the pencil button on the top right
If you choose create a comic you are immediately given the choice between beginner and advanced. I choose beginner. The beginner process allows you to choose from stock backgrounds, characters, and speech bubbles. The advanced process gives you a blank slate, but allows you to add backgrounds and props just a bit at a time. Unless creating the scenery and characters are important I would stick with the choice of beginner.
I did not examine the pricing structures. For a one off assignment this seems to work fine and allows you to send a link of your work to the teacher. Plus you have a range of privacy options which is great.
MAKEBELIEFSCOMIX
I liked makebelievfscomics, very basic and easy to get started. It took me even less time to make this comic. http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=23207637C1547204
With makebelievefscomix (easy to misspell) you don’t even have to sign in to create a comic. Head to the comix creation page and get started. You have only the basic three panel scheme and you cannot create personalized characters, but for young kids this is the choice. Literally everything for creation is on one page. Click next and you can review, print, and email.
STORYBIRD
Storybird, is not a comic creator, but a book and poem creator. I like it because it allows you to choose great art and then write a story. Or if you like you can upload your own picture prompt. It took me about 15 minutes to create this picture book. http://storybird.com/books/dancing-before-the-sun/?token=rbkaj6m3w3 It is also easy to share, plus commenting with moderation is built in.
As a teacher you can easily create a classroom and add assignments for students (free). Students can write a poem, a short picture book, or a long form chapter book. As a teacher you can choose the type of book they write for their assignment, you can add some pictures or art for a prompt, and set due dates.
GOOGLE DOCS
It is very easy to forget about Google Docs. Opening a blank document it is easy to insert a drawing (which can be a picture with a textbox overlayed). If we create a table and add these drawings into the cells we have a simple comic strip with text boxes instead of thought clouds. The pictures can be a simple hand drawing that we take a picture of with our phones and upload to Google Drive, they can be pictures from the internet, or even snapshots from our webcams.
ICE 2015
ICE is the Illinois Computing Educators annual conference. We are lucky to have such a large and vibrant community of technology educators in Illinois. They also love to share in the knowledge, the notes from almost everyone at ICE2015 can be found here.
Effective Presentations for 21st Century School Leaders
I spent two days this week at the ICE conference in St. Charles, IL. My first all day session was Presentations for Administrators. Lot’s of good suggestions. (shared notes)
- When watching a video open a back channel like todaysmeet.com and have students discuss the video while watching.
- All presentations should probably start on paper using basic creative writing 101 skills. Tell a story don’t read bullet points from a slide.
- Seven Tips for Storytelling
- Stories are about people.
- Let your characters speak for themselves.
- Audiences bore easily. Make people wonder what will happen next, always throw up obstacles.
- Stories stir up emotions.
- Stories don’t tell: they show.
- Stories have at least one “moment of truth.”
- Stories have a clear meaning.
- Finish with a STAR moment (Something To Always Remember) Nancy Duarte
- A good presentation will kind of look like this
Tuesday was three distinct activities. A half day program on Google for students with mild to severe disability, a few short speakers, and EdCampAfterDark.
I tried to put some of these practices into my presentation on helping students make better presentations. A new tool - Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires
Google for Students with Mild to Severe Disabilities
I love these Special Ed programs because most of the tools can be used in the regular classroom, they just don’t have to be used. (shared notes)
Speech to text
Nothing on the market today seems to match the accuracy and functionality of Dragon Dictation software. If however, you have a chromebook or don’t want to pay there are still options.
- Read&Write for Google Docs (free for a year subscription for teachers)
- Previously we pushed out a speech to text chrome extensions to D2 called SpeakIt. You may have noticed it reads a webpage when you highlight the words. Read&Write is much more advanced.
- Read&write also helps convert text to speech and predicts the next word when writing.
- Dictanote A speech to text writer. Also recognizes foreign languages. This program and most like it probably uses the same speech to text engine as when you talk to your phone. It isn’t great or fast, but works pretty well. This also means it can tap into google Translate and allows you to speak in any languages they have (a lot).
- Use Hello sign to have parents sign forgotten field trip forms etc.. up to 3 per month free.
- Workflows When working on a building it might be nice to add workflows so everyone knows who is doing what and who needs to sign off on what.
- Using a single google doc for repetitive notes. Create a table of contents at the top, use bookmarks or headings to create links to days. I’ve put my blog post drafts on a Google doc on this manner so you can see.
- If you use headings 4thor insert > bookmarks you can create hyperlinks within a google Document. Then you can insert>table of contents to create a quick hyperlinked table of contents anywhere in your document. Or add the hyperlinks one at a time to the top.
- This is great if you have regular meetings on the same subject or student. Instead of creating dozens of documents and maybe losing one everything is there and easily found.
- Distance measurements on maps or Map a work-out
- You can add several flags on a map and ask students to measure distance, create directions etc….
- Adding pictures to Google forms and spreadsheets. When you click insert > image on a google form or spreadsheet you can search online or your computer and add a picture. This can be great for students who make grocery lists and need pictures.
I used my new better presentation skills to create a quick presentation on HaikuDeck about HaikuDeck. A great little web and iPad tool to break out of the worst PowerPoint mistake (too many words on a slide).
THINGS FOUND ON THE WEB
DOE clarifies student privacy policies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deo2F19DK_o
3:36 using websites and parental consent in class.
6:30 using free apps - This site may help with terms of service https://tosdr.org/
The official government website on student privacy http://ptac.ed.gov/.
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