Comics are a great way for students to express their learning and process information, and reading comics and graphic novels are great for reluctant readers and English Language Learners. I explored three websites to see how easy making comics could be.
FotoJet
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FotoJet (https://www.fotojet.com/) requires
input of credit card to access the 7 day free trial.
After that it's $6.99 per month if billed monthly or $39.99 per year if
billed annually. There are options to create products other
than a comic strip, such as posters, invitations, social media posts, and
menus. It is very easy to add pictures,
text, and speech bubbles, and there is a wide variety of clipart, fonts, and
embellishments that can be added to the comics. You must upload pictures, so this could be a great way to document a classroom activity, or students could use copyright-free images from the Web. There are many different templates and styles to choose from, but from
what I can tell the comics are limited to one page, and if you needed to create
a longer comic you would have to create each page as a separate document. This site is very user friendly, allows creation of a product rather quickly, and the finished product is easy to share or download. This would be ideal for a simple product that would need to be created quickly.
Pixton
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With Pixton, (https://www.pixton.com/) all
content unlocked for 7-day free trial without having to enter a credit card
number, except that you are not able to download, share, or print without
subscribing. There are several subscription
options available, starting at $9.99/month for teacher-only access (no
classroom use), or there are $24.99/month or $99/year options that allows access
for an unlimited number of students and classrooms for the year. There are also school and district options
available to get quotes for. The site also
has printables and suggestions on how to use Pixton in the classroom. Themed content packs are available for
creating a comic in a specific time or setting, or even for a specific
story. Unlike FotoJet, each panel of the
comic is created separately, and you can include as many panels as you
like. The options for backgrounds and
characters are numerous with highly customizable body positions and facial expressions, but you start from scratch
rather than using a template. If this
were to be used with students it would take much more time to create a product
than with FotoJet, but the options are endless and creating the comic is very user-friendly. Once I got the hang of it, I was able to create the comic above fairly quickly. This would be great for a project that is more involved where students had to show an in-depth understanding of a topic or concept. Aside from the cost, this site was my favorite of the three as the finished product appeared very polished and professional and the options were highly customizable and easy to search for.
Make Beliefs Comix
Make Beliefs Comix (https://makebeliefscomix.com/) is a free site but does require you to create a login for security purposes. You can create a maximum of 18 panels, and there are multiple languages available for text. Several types of comic prompts can be used to get you started with your
creation. There are even templates that
are printable and are geared towards helping ESL students practice English and
cover a wide range of topics. You also
have the ability to add audio to the comics, which is another great feature for
Emergent Bilingual students. Of the
three, this site has the most suggestions on ways to incorporate comics into
the classroom. There are a wide variety
of backgrounds and diverse characters available, but they are not nearly as
customizable as with Pixton. Finished products can
be easily shared or downloaded, but there was extra blank box and the end of my comic that was
not present in the original document. Overall this site was fairly quick and easy to use, but I found myself spending longer trying to decide on whether to start from scratch or use a prompt. I also don't feel like the interface was as user-friendly as Pixton or FotoJet; pictures were not searchable and I kept accidentally making changes to the wrong frame in my comic. However, as a free option, this is definitely worth trying with students.
Presenting comics to teachers
The best way to learn something is to do it yourself, so that's exactly what I would do in this case when sharing these resources with teachers. During either a staff meeting, team meeting, or in-service day I would present the staff with these websites to explore and have each person create their own comic using the site of their choice. While most teachers will default to the free option, I think exploring the paid sites is a good idea also; maybe it will inspire someone to write a grant for a subscription, or if there is enough positive response the administrator might be willing to purchase it for the campus. After the training session, I would give each subject area suggestions to incorporate comics into their lessons such as:
- explaining how to solve a specific type of math problem
- summarizing the plot of a story
- comparing characters in a book
- showing the journey of a rock through the rock cycle
- comparing types of governments and religions
- illustrate a short story or poem a student has written
- summarizing an experiment conducted in the classroom
- comparing different ecosystems
- having English-language learners practice new vocabulary
- using to illustrate good digital citizenship guidelines
There are endless possibilities! While I did use comics in the classroom occasionally as a classroom teacher, I wish I had known about these websites when I was teaching. Students who don't like to draw are often frustrated by creating comic strips, but with these programs, no drawings is necessary.