Reviews of 'Toons for Classrooms

Universal Design for Learning as a framework recommends that students be given a variety of choices in how they showcase their learning.  With the rise in popularity of anime and manga among today’s youth, you might find them chomping at the bit for the opportunity to create a comic strip for your classroom!  Today, Education World reviews some of the most popular comic-creating sites on the web for students to use to get their creativity on!  User beware!  Although many of these are very student-friendly, much of the content models on the site are user-generated!

Make Beliefs Comix

Pros: 

• Make Beliefs Comix has an easy-to-use app for iPad
• A wealth of teacher support options, including lesson plans
• Site is SUPER easy to use

Cons:

• You can create comics, but you can’t save comics to a personalized account
• Not a huge variety of art in the character and graphics bank

Thoughts for the classroom:  Make Beliefs Comix is great for all ages, but probably the easiest to use for younger students.  Each character in the bank comes with a small handful of poses that cover the basics.  The only bummer is that you have to email your comics to yourself in order to keep them.  The site will not save your work.

ToonDoo

Pros:

• Can easily and quickly manipulate many details of your character
• A fair variety of stock characters and expressions
• Can be as simple or as complicated as you make it
• Extremely user-friendly

Cons:

• Depending on which characters you use, the art can be a bit campy
• Limited character pool to choose from
• Web-based only (no app)

Thoughts for the classroom:  ToonDoo could be easily integrated into any classroom.  The program is straightforward and easy to use, and can be differentiated for students who wish to go deeper into the character options.  The characters are fun, easy to plop into a chosen scene, and add text to.  The above comic took little time to create, once the appropriate characters were discovered from the character bank.

Chogger

Pros:

• Can draw your own characters and add them to your comic
• Can upload images and add them to your comic

Cons:

• No character or background graphics bank to choose art from
• There’s a rougher feel to the site; might take a while for items to upload or be added
• Web-based only (no app)

Thoughts for the classroom:  Chogger is VERY different from many of the other sites highlighted here.  It is certainly for your creative students, and would likely be more comfortable to use for your high school or web-savvy middle school students.  All art has to be generated by the user, either by drawing it or downloading it from the web and uploading it to Chogger.  It’s fun, as it allows them a never-ending supply of art, but much more challenging to create character continuity.

Strip Generator

Pros:

• The look of a raw and edgy web comic
• You can manipulate characters and background just enough to make it interesting, but not overwhelming
• Extremely user-friendly

Cons: 

• Some might not like the simplicity of the art, especially the lack of arms
• Web-based only (no app)

Thoughts for the classroom:  Strip Generator was fun to use and will definitely interest your web-savvy students.  The characters might seem a little dark, so teachers might find some of the other sites to be warmer and friendlier for younger students.  Absolutely great for high school angst.

Pixton

Pros: 

• “Pixton for Fun” basic is free (there is a trial for more advanced work)
• Has a separate “Pixton for Schools” option (paid) to regulate content
• You can reuse characters
• Pixton has an app for both Apple and Android
• Once you have added characters, you can arrange their bodies in almost any configuration

Cons:

• The art is a bit campy
• The ability to rearrange the bodies of the characters is almost overkill – too many options, and difficult to get exactly what you might be looking for

Thoughts for the classroom:  Pixton gives you a LOT of choices when creating your comic, and some students might love that opportunity.  For others, it could easily become extremely frustrating to work with and is not all that user-friendly.  The comic above took a lot of time, and yielded disappointing results…the thick white outlines around the characters and their spindly arms and legs feels really unsatisfying for someone trying to bring an idea into fruition.

Written by Keith Lambert, Education World Contributor

Lambert is an English / Language Arts teacher and teacher trainer in Connecticut