ToonDoo
I liked ToonDoo a lot. I felt like it was easy to use, had a lot of character, background and accessory options, and was easy to save, share, and embed. This is one I would feel comfortable using at the elementary level. I think students would be able to navigate it fairly easily. ToonDoo was by far may favorite.
I could have used a tutorial from Pixton. Either it was very limited or wasn't user friendly. Either way, it wasn't as easy to navigate as ToonDoo. Pixton did allow much more detailed manipulation of the character and speech bubbles. I also noticed that it saide "beginner" on the corner of my screen, so there must be varying levels to work with. I think this program would probably be best for middle and high school students. They would probably be able to do much more with this than I was able to.
I also could not embed this comic. I tried multiple times to enter the code and I never saw any evidence through my draft or preview that it was there (maybe it will be there when I publish). I was easily able to save it as a PNG and insert it into the blog.
I could not save or embed this comic. Again, the fault could be mine, but if it is, it wasn't easy for me to figure out. This website was in between the other two for me in it's likableness. I felt like it was easier to use than Pixton, but didn't have as much selection as ToonDoo. I did like all of the resources that accompanied this site though. I think it is a great tool for teachers and is a great starting place for someone that hasn't used websites like this before. I appreciated and watched the tutorial at the beginning. It made me feel more comfortable with the process.
Amanda's MakeBeliefsComix- this is a link to my comic
Tellagami
Tellagami was a fun and easy app to use. It would be a great final project that even the littlest guys could use. It reminds me a lot of a podcast, but with a picture and "storyteller". I would actually have liked to have had an account with them, so that I could have messed around with it a little more.
Final Thoughts
Being a 1st grade teacher, and not a particularly tech savy one at that, I prefered ToonDoo and Tellagami. They were both user friendly and had good final products. I felt that 1st graders could easily work with them both .
We had many of these apps (and of course all websites) available to us last year, but no one ever promoted them or told us about them. Had I known more, I would have used them. It's important for those that know, to spread the information to others. I think there was an assumption that we could play around with apps on our own, but with no direction and little time, that wasn't easy.
Something else that I do like about all of these websites and apps we have encountered through this summer session, is that everything can be emailed. With the limited projects I did do with my class last year, I would have the kids email me their final projects. After I looked at them, I would forward them on their parents. Both the kids and the parents really liked that, and now I am feeling like I have more tools at my finger tips (which I WILL share with others!)
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