Online Cartooning with Adult Students

Wednesday, April 28, 2010

Leecy Wise, 4CPDRC

Cartooning, through comic strips or other means, provides an ideal tool for engaging visual learners, those people who comprise huge numbers in our programs. They are the non-linguistic, non-mathematical types that come to us hoping for help. Through comics, we can put language and math into context so that learners can better perform in those areas.

Cartoons invite laughter – a huge, contributing  ingredient in learning. Cartoons invite creativity – a huge, contributing  ingredient in learning. Cartoons engage the senses, the emotions -  huge, contributing  ingredient in learning.

GED students can use cartoons to illustrate social, economic and political messages. ABE, Family Literacy, and ESL students can use cartoons to express language and solve problems.

The following resources will give you an introduction on how to create cartoons online.

• http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/student-interactives/comic-creator-30021.html - Super simple to create right off the bat.
•  http://myths.e2bn.org/index.php - Creates a story board. Easy and fun.
• http://www.wittycomics.com/ - Very business-like strip. Easy to create.
• http://www.stripcreator.com/ -Lots of pre-made strips that can be modified. Make sure that the "Obscenity Filter" is turned on at the top right corner of the site.
  
• http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/ - Simple and fun.
• http://www.inkcinct.com.au/index.htm - This is an Australian site with cartoons in many categories, including several global sections.
• Google “create cartoons”