Week+Eight

It's a Bird, It's a Plane, NO, It's COMIC Day! This week we were joined by **Barbara McLaughlin**, the elementary IT consultant at OCDSB, to teach us all about comic life and Bitstrips!

Comic Life Comic life is a great tool for getting students to convey their knowledge in a different format. I think the visual learners would really love this, and it allows students to show their creativity.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/84/271524810_4cefcdae81.jpg

Here are some of the thing a teacher needs to keep in mind when their students use this program:
 * Make your expectations clear! - Include a checklist or rubric
 * Have students brainstorm before getting on the computers
 * Don't just assess the look of the comic, think content
 * Teach students the proper comic conventions:
 * Shots- establishing (setting), close-ups
 * Format - colour, font
 * Bubbles - ex thought
 * Panels - tilt shadow
 * Gutters - inferring, time
 * Z-pattern of reading
 * Where to find legal images

Here are the two pages I created using comic life:

Bitstrips Bitstrips is another tool used to create comics. In this program, users can create their own characters and put them into comics! Below are two versoins of the avatar I made for myself, as well a a small comic.

Comic Life vs. Bitstrips There are many pros and cons to both programs. Here are my main concerns.
 * **Comic Life** requires photos to be imported, which is tedious but allows for a wide range of creations.
 * Images are included **Bitstrips**, but they can be limiting.
 * **Bitstrips** allows users to manipulate characters and objects to position them in various ways.
 * **Comic Life** requires the images to ready for use, so user would have to use other programs to edit their images for use.

I can see uses for both programs. I really like the ease of use of Bitstrips and can see students enjoying themselves while using this program. However, it does have limited props, and if students wanted to display a science lab with beakers and test tubes, they would likely struggle. In this case Comic Life might be ideal. It could also by useful to have **students take their own photos** for their comic so that they don't need to spend a significant amount of time search for images to properly display their ideas.

Co-writter and Write Out Loud These are some really useful tools for students with difficulties writting. I enjoyed the word prediction technology and the speech of words and sentences once they are typed. I think it's reat to be aware of these programs and how they work in order to allow students to use them.

This Week's Reading!
 * Acceptable Use Policies for Internet Use**


 * AUP acts as a written contract between administrators, teachers, parents and students
 * focus on the responsible use of computer networks including the Internet and e-mail


 * OCDSB's Acceptable Use Policy**

This document outlines the boards policies, which state that all staff, students and volunteers respectfully use the internet. All use should be to support education for classroom activities and/or professional or career development.