Monday, January 31, 2011

Website of the Week # 7-Bitstrips (Make Your Own Comics)

http://www.bitstripsforschools.com/ (30 day free trial for a classroom)
http://www.bitstrips.com/ (free individual accounts, no classroom)

Basics: This is a way to create comics.  You can create comics that explain something or the students can create comics to show understanding of a concept.  You can create a template for an assignment as well.  The student can create their own avatar.

Why Bitstrips? (Quality of video may not be great, but you can hear what they have to say)


Bitstrips for Schools from Bitstrips on Vimeo.

Example:



Test Kitchen: I used my Bitstrips 30 free trial for the classroom today for the first time.  I didn't have the students make a comic today.  Today I just had them read the comic that I made and then leave a comment after they were done.  I had a lot of positive feedback on the program and everything ran smoothly.  Many students were itching to actually create their own comic.  We will be doing that some time during the next 30 days.  I learned that I may want to make my comics a little bit more basic and have less writing per frame.  Everyone was engaged and read the comic though.  That is a lot different than when it is just text.

Tip: Since the free trial only includes one classroom and 40 accounts I just set-up one account per computer and named them number 1, number 2, number 3, etc.  That way up to 5 student (one per class) is using the same account.  It isn't ideal but it seemed to work out great today.  The accounts were very easy to set-up and we have unlimited access for the next 30 days.

Classroom Applications:

This could be used in any subject area for a variety of activities.

Math: Have them create a story that practices vocabulary words in a real context.

Science: Explain a scientific process frame by frame.

Social Studies: Tell a story about a historical figure from a different point of view.

Language Arts: Adapt an essay.  Condense it into comic book form.

Additional Related Sites:

http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/interactives/comic/index.html 
(Recommended by Mindy Sanders)

1 comment:

  1. I really like the format of your blog, and I love that I can check out the "Test Kitchen" to see how you tried it in your classroom.

    The Classroom Applications are fabulous too.

    I'll be bookmarking Bitstrips. I hadn't heard of it before, so thanks for the share.

    I have not actually made any comics, but have heard about ToonDoo. Have you seen it? http://www.toondoo.com/ I was just wondering what your impressions were if you had.

    As always, thank you for providing this blog!

    ReplyDelete