Crystal Ball – Comic Strip Creators

Finding educational technology tools to integrate into the classroom is so much fun. I came across so many neat ideas that I wanted to learn more about. It just goes to show that the possibilities of integrating technology are endless. The amount of technology we have available to us at such a minimal costs (if not free), really can add a lot of character to learning and persevere student progress. Technology helps to create an engaging and interesting hands on experience for students to interact with the real world. Which brings me to the reason I choose www.toondoo.com. 

 

The tool I choose to learn more about and help explain to others was a comic strip creator. It was created by a company called Jambav who is dedicated to formatting educational software and games for students. Check out there website, they always have different features. (http://www.jambav.com) That is actually how they introduced ToonDoo, by featuring for the month. This was probably about 10 years back, but it became larger than anticipated so they created a whole website, all for free! For this month, October, they have a vocabulary interacting game for all ages. Jambav is supported by a United States company called Zoho Corporation (http://www.zohocorp.com) who also formats many different types of professional software (even some similar to Google). I choose this site because of all they have done so far for students. They seem like a really great company designed to provide students with alternative learning benefits.

I had a lot of fun playing around on ToonDoo. It had so many options and tools available, I could really spend hours just messing around. What I enjoyed the most about it, is that it allows you to become creative artistically through a different perspective. And especially because I am horrible at free drawing, it was a perfect fit. I felt like I could create a cute little comic and not have to worry about drawing anything. Toondoo seemed a little more appropriate for younger students because of the types of characters and features available. It was user friendly and simple, yet had so many features. I loved the fact that you could create full comic books. There are so many options to integrate this tool into the classroom. Creating book reports, or illustrating science processes. It can be used to help explain history and scenes, while allowing for natural artistic abilities and creative thinking. So..SO many options!

I am not sure if teachers in the future will use this type of site. Personally, I can see it being used in the classroom years from now. Not only are students engaging with technology, but they are being creative in their own way showing off their talents. I think that if there was assurance about having that internet access at home or in the school setting along with having personal or laptop computers or ipads, students could engage with these types of sites more often. This particular site is roughly at least 10 years old and you still see it being used by so many, and internationally. I think it is a great way to interact with other cultures, because you can also view their abilities and personalities. I find this type of tool will be extremely beneficial in the future. Maybe it is not a tool that can be used everyday, but it is great for different types of projects. Once technology is integrated more often, I can definitely see this type of tool being used. The only pitfall I would say is parents and teachers having to monitor students accounts. Even though the site is safe, they still have to have an email account to sign up. Jambav has a version that is strictly dedicated for educational institutions, which is awesome, except it is of course not free. If the fee was fairly low, I can see it being of value to pay for the limited edition for easier monitoring access. But other than that, it is a great site, free resources, and has much educational value! Check it out!