Comic Creator in the classroom: The Boy's Life Comic Creator is a great little tool to help your boys connect with writing and story telling in a way that they enjoy and understand. The tool is simple enough to use as a writing station/center on classroom computers. The comic does need to be created in one sitting, there is no way to save and come back to a comic later. Completed comics can be printed off and shared.
The Comic Creator is a great entry point into writing but could also be useful in math for creating and solving story problems. Students can create a short math comic strip that can be traded with other students to solve.
Students taking a foreign language class could practice new words by creating a comic strip story in Comic Creator.
Use Comic Creator the first week of school as a way for boys to tell all about themselves. Each student can create a comic strip that stars them as the main character. Invite other students to try to match the comic strip with the student as a fun interactive bulletin board activity (Think comics on one side, student pictures on the other and string to draw the "line" between matches).
Comic Master could be a good tool for getting reluctant writers writing. The organization that sponsors Comic Master offers teachers a set of lesson plans built upon the use of Comic Master in the classroom. The lesson plans are designed for students between eleven and fourteen years of age.
Making a comic is a wonderful way to involve children in some creativity and storytelling. Although writing is limited in the actual online comic maker, kids can still use it as a spark for a story of their own. They could handwrite or type a story, and use printed cartoons from Pharaoh's Quest as their illustrations. Younger kids will relish the opportunity to make stories that revolve around their toys. Play with literacy even more, and work out children's names according to the Egyptian Hieroglyphic Alphabet.
Are you looking to engage kids in a safe online setting and provide 21st century learning opportunities? Professor Garfield provides an environment where children can safely create, interact, read, engage, and express themselves through a variety of innovative online tools including an e-book reader and comics lab.