For the past year or two, I have been reading about the use of comics in the classroom. Comics are a great way to get students interested in reading and writing. Comics usually include character, setting and plot. Because this is a condensed form of writing it helps them to focus on the main points. Whatever you decide to use these for, the students will enjoy them as well as develop better reading and writing skills.
Here are a few online comic creator websites that I have been experimenting with
: The first one is free and it is called
pikistrips. The creators also have another site but geared towards a younger audience called
pikikids. Both have the same interface and are easy to use. Both sites will allow your students to do the following: create a one cell strip all the way up to a nine cell strip, change the color of the border, cell and background if you desire, upload your own pictures then you can add special effects to it. You can also add clip art to your photo like glasses or a new crazy hair style. Next you can add your dialog. Just have fun with it. When you are finished creating your comic, you can save it to your account (must be a registered user). At this point you must decide if you wish to make the comic public or private. If you choose to make it public then everyone can see it as well as comment on it. This would make a great visual literacy activity or use as a gallery of student work that could be added to their blog or website. The uses are limitless. You can also print or email them to friends and family.
I like both of these sites, but the biggest draw back is that anyone can post anything publicly, which means students could stumble upon questionable material, so you might want to use some precautions when using this site. Keep in mind you only need to register once because you can have multiple logins.
The next comic creator website I discovered was
makebeliefscomixs. This site gives you the option of choosing comic characters, adding minor effects and dialog. This site also gives you the print/email option. You won't be able to save these like you could if you were using the piki site. Ideas that the author gives for creating comics are things like: telling your life story, traveling to a mysterious place, making wishes come true, a day at work/school, create a new song or a new fairy tale. Just use your imagination.
Another site that might interest some of you is the
Pixton for schools, this site does cost which is around $1.00 per person per month. "Pixton is officially accredited SMART™ Board interactive whiteboard 'Ready'". The nice feature about Pixton is it offers a "private virtual classroom".
Artisan Cam
The Super Action Comic Maker is a free comic strip maker which has a super hero theme. You create a comic strip, send it to the gallery for others to view or print it.
I also used
toondoo, as it was a free service, but just recently they now have a fee for use. This site had comic type characters you added to your cells in which you could add backgrounds, props, effects, text, etc.
Comiqs is another free site. Currently it is in beta form and I have noticed some problems with accessing certain features, but don't let this stop you from experimenting with it. I like the interface and the ease of use is a nice feature.
