Cartoons and Comics

This lesson was a lot of fun! I think students will be engaged in lessons more if we incorporate using comic and cartoon applications in teaching and learning. Comics have the ability to meet the needs of students in a variety of learning styles. These short comics can represent paragraphs worth of written material in a manner that is enjoyable and effective for the early reader or challenged reader. 

Below is my link for my ToonDoo!
http://www.toondoo.com/View.toon?param=10275972

This ToonDoo application was a lot of fun and the most enjoyable for me. I loved the freedom and choices of characters and backgrounds offered in this one. It was easy to save and embed the link for viewing in my Blog. It offers ample library of clip art and the ability to doodle your own pictures. Teens can use the format to express complex emotions, while younger students are reinforcing basic reading skills. It is also a great way to pair pictures with the plot and can help students learn how the elements of a story work.  


Pixton had limited characters and backgrounds to work with. It was my second favorite of the three to make comics with. I loved the way you could move the characters into different positions to get the mood across. This cartoon was easy to save and embed the image right into my Blog. I think students would find this a great way to express themselves and not have to have any technical skills to produce the comic. When students see the finished comic they will be at awe because they were the writer, creator and producer. Below is my Pixton comic!





MakeBeliefsComix was my least favorite. It was very limited and you didn't have much freedom to create with. With this application students can't use own original work. But the animated characters would be very easy to use with very young elementary students.You can however select the panel you want to use before or during creation. You do not have to create an account on this application and so you can not save your work and work on it another day. You can e-mail the link of your comic to a friend, where they can view your comic by clicking on the link that is e-mailed to them.

Below is link to my MakeBeliefsComix!
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/?comix_id=13569419C1984067

As librarians and teachers, by using cartoons and comics in lessons, we can get the attention of students who might be bored by offering them an outlet to express themselves in a creative way. It enriches reading, writing and thinking. It presents what is essential. There are many different ways to use these applications. Some might be to promote sequencing of events, create book reports, timelines, storytelling, to show easy to follow instructions, pre-writing tools, character analysis, and many more ideas. By using comics and cartoons in the classroom we can help students to analyze, synthesize, and absorb content that may be more difficult when presented in only one way.