I love to find new ways to tell a story. When iMovie first came out, I was really lucky to be working for Apple so I immediately had a digital camcorder and iMovie, and I was off making movies and exploring ways students could use this new tool to learn by telling video stories. I also spent five years helping students make multimedia projects using HyperStudio and then immediately fell in love with the lesson-creation possibilities when I was first introduced to the ActivClassroom (ActivBoard and ActivStudio at the time).
But recently, I've found a new love: making cartoon illustrations. I don't have the time nor talent to draw my own cartoons, but I can certainly use the tools that are available now. A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog article suggesting how cartoons can be used to aid learning and I listed a range of cartoon-making tools you may find useful. It proved to be a popular topic, so, having already covered some lesson ideas, I thought I'd follow it up with more detailed instructions on how to create the cartoons themselves. In my earlier article, I mentioned that my current favorite tool for doing this is called ToonDoo, so I'll focus on that one as each program is different.
Without meaning to sound like a sales person, I'll start by sharing with you some of the things I like about this particular program. First of all, I find it easy to use and it's free. I also think the results look great! The software is web-based, so I don't have to have any software installed, which I really like too. Of course, there are other programs out there, many of which I listed in "Ideas for Comic Strips (Part 1)"; if you've found one of those that you particularly like, please share the reasons why by adding a comment below.
So, let's say I want to make a cartoon to illustrate an idea for a blog or a flipchart. I start by logging in and selecting Create Toon from the menu:
Then, I select the layout I want to use, which is typically the biggest white box since I am just making one cartoon and not an entire strip:
I then get a blank page on which I (normally) start by choosing a background, which I can do from this menu:
At this point, I can then choose people and props for my cartoon. I find the search engine is a useful time saver for finding what I want and I like that many of the people have a variety of expressions and body gestures to choose from. I can also shrink or enlarge the graphic. The red arrows in the image below highlight the various features:
I can add captions, too (if you prefer, you can use the caption tool built into ActivInspire):
Whatever cartoon-making tool you use, once you have your cartoon how you like it, you need to get it into your flipchart. The best way (I've found) is to use ActivInspire's Desktop Tools' Camera tool to take a snapshot of the cartoon and paste it into the flipchart:
There are sooo many ways you can use this in your ActivClassroom! Imagine the possibilities in foreign language lessons or creative writing! Take a look at the ideas I shared in Part 1 and please share your own suggestions. Can you think of ways you can use this with your students? Do you think your students would enjoy using this too? Let's be creative!
After you've created your comic strips and cartoons, don't forget to share them with the Planet community! As well as in flipcharts, you can now upload them in a range of file types, including images, PDFs, PowerPoint presentations and Word documents.
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I happened to run up on Toondoo last week. My 4th graders have been using it this week to create cartoons of famous athletes. They have been more excited over this site than any of the many I have introduced them to this year. It is a simple format that is very easy to use. I did not have to give any instructions. How lucky we are to have a free site that motivates kids to write while incorporating learned subject matter. I will post some on Planet as soon as my students are finished creating.
Looks pretty cool Lisa - I've always been a fan of using Manga to make what seems on the surface, a difficult subject, into something a bit more manageable, so this seems a natural fit into that category. I quite like the interface on this one, particularly the prop search.
On a much more basic level, I've always loved showing the video record function in ActivInspire - a simple but effective way of stop-start animation.
I totally agree that a good picture worth thousands of words, but I was not a good drawer and I struggled to find suitble cartoons for my presentation. I'd love to give this stuff a try. Thanks Lisa!
However, my concern is if using too much read-to-use material will kill children's creation? Why not just ask kids to draw on paper--it might not be as beautiful as using the online resource, but it gives children the full freedom to create something on their own, and gives them the full space to imaginate, which is so important for children's development.
This is great Lisa! I'll tell all our teachers about this. I'm sure they'll love it - so will the kids.
Thanks for the play-by-play instructions! I've never attempted to use any of the cartoon-making software before this, and I have to say the explicit instructions were what convinced me to make a cartoon today. It was easy! Thanks a bunch.
That's great, Marcy, Diana. Next time I'd love to show how to use TraitR. It lets you make custom characters. I did one that is supposed to be my husband and posted it on Facebook. All of our friends knew right away who it was!
Ah! HyperStudio. Brings back a lot of memories. Remember Apple's "HyperCard?" I used to do workshops on that program, my Mac, and a device called a "Laser Disk Player." All before the Net took over and my first try at a "browser" called "Mosaic." Okay, enough, thanks for the cool cartoon site. I'm giving it a try.....
Mark, I used to program HyperCard, too! My first project was a hand-drawn animated cat. But I also used it to track serial numbers and warranty dates for several hundred Apple IIe's and IBM "Model 25's". Ah, the memories. Geesh, I'm old.
excellent idea, explanation!
Inspired by your blog Lisa, last week the Planet Editorial Team created a comic strip about our typical day, as part of a presentation to our colleagues. We created caricatures of each member of the team and read out our lines as we showed the cartoon frame by frame on the whiteboard. It made for a fun opening to the presentation that I don't think anyone will forget in a hurry!
How fun! I'd love to see the strip. Probably wouldn't get the inside jokes though. That could be a fun exercise for team building among staff at a school!
That looks like a good free site to use. I have used the following site www.bitstripsforschools.com to make some comic strips in class with the students. It is a pay site but we were given a 72 day free trial and that was plenty of enough time to get to know and use in the classroom. Here is a link to some of the example comics we created.
www.carman.k12.mi.us/.../browse.asp