Cartoons and Comics

For today's blog post and our Module 10 assignment, we explored some different sites that allow you to make your own cartoon or comic. Since graphic novels are all the rage right now, I really love this idea and think it could be a really useful tool for teachers and students. I explored three different websites that allow you to create cartoons or comic strips. 

Oopsie! The first site was Toondoo.com and it has been shut down, so I was unable to review or use this site.

The second site was Pixton. I registered as an Educator and then I couldn't get back to the comic I created because I had to join as a student and it wouldn't allow me to join with the same email address, but I did take a screenshot of the comic I created and here it is:

I created a quick comic about dinosaurs because the majority of the free backgrounds and characters/animals I could find were indeed, dinosaurs. The site is easy to navigate and create with, but the free options are extremely limited. 

The third site was makebeliefscomix.com and it is free! You can create an account for free, name and save your comics. After a few minutes of exploring and playing around with the tools, it was pretty straight-foward and easy to navigate and create a comic. You can covert your comics to eleven different languages besides English. This site allows you to review and edit the comics you create. You can also go back to a comic that has already been saved and edit it. You can save your comics by downloading, sharing on Facebook, emailing a copy to yourself, or printing. I definitely think students would enjoy creating their own comics on this site. Here is the simple comic I quickly created using makebeliefscomix.com.

I would use comics with my teacher-colleagues as a fun, creative way to promote upcoming events like a book fair, feature a professional development opportunity or new arrivals in the library, or a reminder that overdue books and materials need to be returned to the library. So may possibilities!