Comix starring you: Bitstrips

This is another ELTAS Tech Tools Day task.

Pre-task thinking:

• We live in the age of me (or "mi", to quote Beaker.) Agree or disagree?
  
• Does self-portrayal or self-promotion play a role in your teaching/ your students' learning styles?
  
• Brainstorm: What sort of stories could star your students?

Now, children absolutely love Bitstrips. It's by far the most creative and versatile for online comix.

Watch:



Bitstrips is a social networking site where you can connect with other Bitstrip makers. The site lets you

• create characters of all kinds.
  
• create a character that looks like you – your avatar.
• give your avatar a role in a comic
• find and add characters others have made to create dialogues
• create strips of various lengths
  

Either embed the strip viewer (see below) or embed an image (and resize to fit your blog/Ning)
This is an old one:



Learning the ropes is clearly easier for children. But this is fail-safe. Make your avatar, make a solo-strip, then try including other characters in a new strip, and invite a friend to join. Even if you don't get all of it, it'll work. Go! With a class, just making the avatar will give you great language. The magic is in the process of creation - not necessarily in the comix produced! Caution: It's a time killer and quite addictive. Here's an idea of what the program does:



Very chatty: ubergeek Chris Pirillio says he's been waiting all his life for this type of software and explains how to invite a friend, creating his or her character...