Age: 7+yrs
Ease ****
Overview
Through this activity, learners investigate writing in the comic book genre. They will learn how to use dialog to express their ideas and create fun and original story sequences. This is particularly good for investigating sequencing and plot.
Description
Ask the pupils to bring their favourite comic book to school. Discuss the typical techniques used in comic books e.g. different kinds of speech bubbles, placing of characters in relation to bubbles, sequencing scenes.
Divide the pupils in to small groups and ask them to create a situation in Creaza Cartoons by choosing a background, characters and characters’ emotions. This is really easy to do, but if you’d like further instruction, put the tutorial URL (below) into your browser. If appropriate, play the tutorial for the learners too, it’s very accessible.
Learners can either create their own cartoon or pass the opening of their story on to another group. Once their stories are finished, they can use Creative Cartoons to turn them in to fantastic comic books! The comic books can be shared through a link and learners can watch and evaluate each other’s work.
What do I need?
www.creaza.com (web 2.0 tool, no need to install anything, you only need to create an account)
tutorial on: http://www.creazaeducation.com/cartoonist
Added value
– easy to share with parents
– learning to work in groups, respecting each other’s ideas
– exploring the possibilities of a new tool
– learning to work independently with ICT
Hints and tips
It is worth noting that the smaller the groups are, the more input each child will probably have into the cartoon. We recommend no more than 4 to a group, but 2 learners per group is ideal.
Safety
Remind pupils to not use personal information e.g. actual addresses, phone numbers etc in their cartoons!
Other opportunities to use the same software
- Develop editing skills by asking pupils to evaluate, edit and publish others’ work.
- Recant personal stories using the characters provided.
- Create new fairytales e.g. Little Red Riding Hood meets The Three Little Pigs.
- For older pupils, why not try www.toonddoo.com this software has more features and looks a little more authentic.
This post is also available in: Dutch, German, Italian, Portuguese (Portugal), Romanian, Welsh
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Cymraeg
Great activity! Since we don’t use comics book I changed to the favorite magazine (there are a lot of kids magazines at newspapers kiosks to sell and the kids really love them).
Creaza isn’t so easy to use as it says (maybe I’m lacking at the technological level – because I need help from the school technician).
Esta actividad fomenta la creatividad, la interactividad y la colaboración entre profesor y alumno. Permite jugar a ambos al mismo tiempo y se hace en grupos de dos como mínimo, a través de la creación de nuevos comics o modificando otros se trabaja la creatividad, también se aprende historia de forma divertida. La edad la veo conveniente, ya que se puede enseñar historia de forma muy sencilla a los niños más pequeña.
Me ha gustado la herramienta que se usa para el desarrollo del aprendizaje de la lengua en todos sus ámbitos, al ser muy cercana y significativa . Añadiendo el manejo de las TIC , por tener la facilidad a través de ellas de compartir y participar a la vez con otros compañeros .Es un trabajo desarrollado para hacer en conjunto , participativo y flexible que fomenta el buen de las nuevas tecnologías.
This activity promotes the creativity, the interactivity and the collaboration between teacher and pupil. It allows to play both at the same time and is done in groups of two as minimum, across the creation of new comics or modifying others one works the creativity, also is learned history of enterteining form. I see the age suitable, since it is possible to teach history of very simple form to the children smaller.
It’s a quite original activity in which students practice their drawing skills, reading and comprehension. The kids have fun and satisfactorily perform the task that has commanded the teacher.
That is, is a way of classwork and group with certain dynamism and creativity, which causes the student to get involved in it without getting bored.
The biggest method of education to catch the skills of the work in group, teaching them to respect the opinions of the others to the same time that to learn to use the TICs. I believe that they all must acquire this capacities and it turns out to me important that it extracts ideas for it, and if above they learn other capacities I think that it is much better.
Me ha gustado mucho esta actividad ya que la veo muy útil para mejorar el lenguaje de los alumnos de primaria. Al ser una actividad sencilla considero que los grupos para llevar a cabo la creación de cómics deben ser de dos personas, ya que será más cómodo utilizar el ordenador entre dos personas que entre cuatro, ya que en estas edades los alumnos quieren utilizar el ordenador constantemente.
Pienso que la edad para llevar a cabo esta actividad es apropiada. Se puede empezar utilizando esta herramienta con alumnos de primer ciclo creando cómics muy sencillos.
En mi opinión es una actividad creativa, motivante, y muy divertida para los alumnos en la que se fomenta el trabajo en grupo, de esta manera los niños se expresan libremente y aprenden a respetar las opiniones de sus compañeros a través de la utilización de las nuevas tecnologías.