Included in the Digital Tips Advent Calendar and part of the Effective Technology Integration category
At a young age, I was interested in comic books, which was really how I learnt to read. ~ Nicholas Cage
Comics can be powerful learning tools. The mix of art, dialogue, character expressions, and frames engages learners and is brain-friendly. Moreover, comics break down a story’s plot and text into bite-sized chunks that are supported with visuals. This is much easier for our brain to process than reading a large amount of text on a page. Additionally, comics are an effective way to introduce your learners to digital storytelling. Many of the comic creation tools are easy to use allowing the learners to fill in their frames by clicking on a choice of characters, props, scenes, and more presented to them. Your learners will be able to quickly create a story, view it, and share it with their friends and family. Comics come in many formats and types to support and engage struggling readers as well as advanced readers. Creating comics engages students and encourages them to explore vocabulary, summarize information, and contextualize what they learn in a creative way. Creating comics is also being accepted as an effective way to teach complicated writing. Nick Sousanis, a doctoral candidate at Teachers College, Columbia University, wrote his PhD dissertation entirely in comic book form. View examples of his work on his blog, Spin, Weave and Cut. The following tips and free resources will help you engage learners with comics.
Ideas
The following are a few ideas to get you started using comics with your learners. Watch the recording of my webinar on this topic here!
- Use as reading material
- Create writing prompts- Makebeliefscomix.com has over 350+ free printables to use as writing prompts
- Retell a historical event
- Write dialogues
- Introduce a lesson
- Summarize readings
- Teach idioms and phrases
- Post an interview
- Explore societal issues
- Explore the language in jokes
- Explore political issues
- Introduce yourself or another person
- Show how to accomplish a goal
- Explore the meaning behind quotes
- Give visual instructions- Howtoons.com is full of great instructional comics
- Highlight the rules
- Math word problems
- Tell the news
- Explore various definitions of a word
- Visualize research
Resources
- Janet Bianchini’s ScoopIt of collected resources and her blog posts
- Examples of various comics created by teachers in my Digital Storytelling Free Open Online Course
- Grade with rubrics- find a few on Rubistar
- My symbaloo with free comic creation tools and apps
Click on any of the icons to be lead to that comic creator. Scroll down to see written descriptions of each tool.
- Make Beliefs Comix– Two, three and four panel comics that you can create in multiple languages. 350+ free printables for teachers
- Kerpoof– create videos, comics, and more with this free tool
- Comics Head– IOS and Android app to make comics. Best one in my opinion that allows adding your own images along with their library of characters, backdrops, and more.
- Friendstrip– IOS and Android app to make comics. Frames set and students can fill in the story.
- Creaza– Create comics, make movies, edit audio, and more! Embed in a blog or wiki.
- Bubblr– Create your comic strip with Flickr pictures and add bubbles to tell your story!
- Comicmaster– Cool graphic novel creator.
- Stripgenerator– You don’t have to register in order to create a comic.
- Bitstrips– Not free, but offers a 30-day free trial and includes more educational support (e.g., activities) than most other comic generators.
- Comic Strip Generator– You can upload photos or use web images in addition to their library of ready-to-use images.
- Garfield– You can create comic strips or (in Comics Lab Extreme) comic books.
- ToonDoo – The site allows students to share their comics, comment on other comics, and even save and edit a copy of a comic.
- Phrase It– Add speech bubbles to pictures.
Challenge:
Try any of these ideas or tools with your students and tell us how it went.
If you enjoyed these ideas, you may want to get your copy of The 30 Goals for Teachersor my $5.99 ebook, Learning to Go, which has digital/mobile activities for any device and editable/printable handouts and rubrics. Subscribe for FREE to receive regular updates!
31 Days of Digital Tech Integration Tips
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