Let's Try Cartoons

Everyone loves the Sunday comics. I can remember back to my childhood, on those cold winter days, during the weekly family pilgrimage to visit grandmother after Sunday church, how reading the Peanuts, Garfield, Dagwood, Family Circus, and Prince Valiant would pass the time. These days, I have to wrestle the comics from my three children and our dog. Mind you, I read the comics to revel in the nostalgia of my youth more than anything else.

As a young man in high school, I have fond memories of many lectures that began with a comic strip from the previous Sunday paper. As a classroom teacher, I see the same practice used by colleagues to this very day. Recently, I found a neat little cartoon strip creator called ToonDoo. I cannot help but think of the incredible potential this has in the classroom. As educators look to continuously increase the student voice in class, I am finding technology can become the greatest accelerate for that idea. Imagine, instead of a teacher utilizing a comic that coincidentially ties into the topic of the day, why not have the students produce a comic strip of their own, as a form of assessment, as a hook for a discussion, as a means to reinforce content, or as a start for some piece of writing.

As usual, I grabbed one of my technology guinea pigs, my children, and try out my idea. My oldest daughter who is currently in fifth grade, loves to tell stories, but has had very little opportunity to develop a visual story board. I sat her down in front of the computer, asked her what she learned that day in class, gave her the website, and let her go. Without any directions as to how the program works, she was able to produce a three frame comic strip on the concept of supply and demand, in under 60 minutes. "You gotta love them net-geners"!

Imagine an entire class producing comics for each other, reinforcing concepts and ideas learned in class that day. Think of the rich possibilities with writing math, and science. Imagine, students developing their own publishing contests, developing a criteria for student judging, putting together a "how to manual", the possibilities are endless.

The nice thing about this technology is, "it's FREE"! It is also very user friendly, with click and drag construction. Simply review the backgrounds, the characters, and get going.