Pixton: let's create a comic!

Hello everyone!

During this term in the ICT classes we have learnt a lot of resources and different programs and apps that can be really interesting for the English classroom. One of the programmes that I enjoyed the most in the masters’ is Pixton.

What is Pixton?

It is a website that allows you to create beautiful comics in just a few minutes. You can something simple or really elaborated. People can use it to:

- Write a book report or other school project in the style of a graphic novel

- Explain a concept or idea in a concise format

- Tell a story with words and pictures

- Depict nuanced emotions with customizable characters

- Make a joke as a comic strip or cartoon

- Storyboard a movie script

Key features:

- Fully possible, expressive characters

- Searchable prop library with 2,000+ objects

- Preset backgrounds grouped by theme

- Stylable text, captions, and speech bubbles

- Flexible layouts with variable panel width and height

Here you have a video that explains how to use it.

Activity:

I found this website so interesting that I have used it in 5th grade with a science project. The project consists in create a comic explaining the Prehistory and the Roman Times. In the first two sessions the students in groups have to search information about Prehistory or Roman times, depending on the group. Once they have the information they have to summarize it in order to use it for the creation of a comic. In the third and forth session they learn to use the Pixton with laptops and they start doing a brainstorming for the comic: What to write (content), the number of characters, the background they want to use, among others. During the fifth and sixth session they create the comic and finally in the seventh session they present it to the class.

As I was using it I discovered some advantages and disadvantages. For example, that it is only free during a short period of time. Besides, with this trial period, you cannot print or download the comic. If you need to use it more you can create an account for the school or pay for it. I decided to create a school account and I have discovered the following advantages:

• Control the comics the students are creating. They can’t publish them without permission.
• Add comments to my students’ comics so they can make improvements.
• Print and download the comics.
• Unlimited time using Pixton
• The school can create 50 different accounts for the students.
• The student and the teacher can grade the comic.

In the following PDF that I have created you can see step by step how to use it and the classroom options when you have a school account.

Finally in the following picture you can see an example of a Pixton comic created by some students.

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       Target audience: Second Key stage

-       Placement in curriculum: ICT, Science and English

-       Aims:

·      Session 1 and 2:

Understand the importance of the historical facts during Prehistory and Roman times.

Analyse and summarize information while connecting ideas.

·      Session 3 and 4:

Understand how Pixton works

Use the program exploiting its possibilities

·      Session 5 and 6:

Create a comic using the summarize content with Pixton

·      Session 7: Present the comic in front of the class acting out. Evaluate their own comic and the others.

General aims: Work collaboratively and speak in English.

-       Strategies and competences involved

Language and audiovisual communicative competence

Information processing and digital competence

Autonomy and personal initiative competence

Knowledge of and interaction with the physical world

-       Content:

• Using ICT to research information on tour performing specific tasks.
• Oral individual or group exposition of subjects studied and using all media available visual tics and       informatics.
• Understanding work instructions and performance in the classroom.
• Understand global and specific types of texts and diverse content in different media and formats and extraction of information for performing a specific task or as reinforcement / expansion of knowledge

English skills:

Reading: During the first sessions the students have to read a lot of information in order to summarize it.	Speaking: During all the sessions the students have to speak in English among them and with the teacher. Furthermore, the last session they have to present the comic in front of the class.
Writing: While summarizing the information and creating the comic they have to write.	Listening: During all the sessions the students have to listen to the teacher instructions, to each other for the creation of the information and the comic and finally pay attention to the presentations.

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: This activity offers an opportunity to enhance both lower- and higher-order thinking skills.

Lower order thinking skills.

·      Level II. Understand (explain ideas or concepts): Understand the importance of the historical facts during Prehistory and Roman times. Understand how to use Pixton.

•   Level III. Applying (using the knowledge in a variety of ways):  Implement the ICT knowledge using Pixton.

Higher order thinking skills.

·    Level IV: Analyse (draw connections among ideas): Analyse and summarize the Prehistory and Roman information while connecting ideas.

·      Level V: Evaluate (justify a stand or decision): Evaluate their own comics and the other groups.

·      Level VI: Creating (create new products or points of view). The activity gives the students the opportunity to create a comic with Pixton.

Added value through ICT – In my opinion this resource is appropriate to use it in the classroom and for example, in this project, because it is very complete and at the same time intuitive. It provides agility because students don’t have to spend time creating the comic if you don’t want because the website provides backgrounds, characters and accessories divided in topics.  I believe that ICT contributes to the activity because it is more motivational and challenging. It facilitates scaffolding because the students have the parts of the comic created.

Trouble-shooting – As I explained before if you don’t pay for the account you have a short period of time to work with it, so I recommend creating a school account. Another problem is that sometimes in the schools Internet doesn’t work properly and you waste a lot of time waiting for the page to charge completely. Maybe some students need extra help with the site, so we could teach one person of the group and create “Expertics”.

Assessment – As I explained before Pixton includes an Assessment grid and has the possibility to write comments. The teacher have to take into account the process and the final result, taking into consideration if the students speak in English all the time, is the apply the suggestions of the teacher in the comments, if they work collaboratively, if they make grammar mistakes and the technology skills and problem solving. Finally, during the presentation the teacher will be using the following rubric:

I hope you enjoy this resource!

Laia López i Mullor

Show Me, this is what you are looking for!

Hi everybody!

I’m Marta. In this post I would like to share with you a useful educational tool, called ShowMe, that allow users to record their voice as well as write text, draw or add some pictures or videos in order to explain some content. This app is available in Ipad and can be used by anybody who want to, no matter the age. ShowMe Interactive Whiteboard is an easy and effective tool for step-by-step audiovisual presenting and sharing. The visual/auditory combination of a ShowMe is engaging to watch as well as create. This app is also useful to help children organize the information in a sensible order as well as develop good presentation skills in a collaborative context. In addition, children can share their projects with the educational community and take advantage of other user’s explanations.

How to use ShowMe? Here you have a presentation that explains it in detail.

What is ShowMe? from ShowMe App

Features (taken from the Apple website)

• Voice-record
• Multiple brush colors
• Enter text
• Pause and erase
• Import pictures from your photo library, built-in camera, or web image search
• Import documents as pictures from dropbox, or google drive
• Create video from any document
• Unlimited lesson length
• Free to upload and share your recordings with friends
• Easy embedding for sharing anywhere
• Manage students with groups

ACTIVITY

Target audience: 5th grade

Placement in curriculum: Science (CLIL)

School course: Second semester

Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy: This activity offers an opportunity to enhance both lower- and higher-order thinking skills.

Lower order thinking skills.

• Level III: Applying (using the knowledge in a variety of ways): This activity provides an opportunity to apply, use and practice the content vocabulary in meaningful context:  a short speech (presentation)

Higher order thinking skills.

• Level VI: Creating (create new products or points of view). The activity gives the students the opportunity to create a piece of oral presentation about how the respiratory system works.

Aims:

• To be able to use ShowMe app.
• To be able to identify and summarize the main contents related to the respiratory system.
• To be able to work in cooperative groups.

Competences involved:

• Linguistic and audio-visual: because pupils have to create a presentation while drawing and explaining different concepts. In this case, drawings are useful to improve the comprehension.
• Information handling and digital competence: in order to do the task, they have to interact and know the app to use it.
• Autonomy, initiative and decision taking: because they are creating a tool that enables their classmates to watch a video-presentation done by themselves. If they are able to do it properly, it means children have understood the concept and are able to explain something in their own words.
• Social and civic: because children have to work in pairs and listen to their partner’s suggestion. This is not about one child doing everything but it involves reaching an agreement about what they want to show.
• Knowledge and interaction with the world: this activity will be about the respiratory system and how it works so the majority of the concepts go around scientific

Grouping: This activity will be carried out in pairs (explained in the procedure).

Procedure of the activity:

First of all, I will explain to students how ShowMe app works and the elements they can find in the toolbar.  

In pairs, students will summarize and present, by using ShowMe, the main contents related to the respiratory system through a recording of about one minute. Each pair will be in charge of a different topic (parts of the circulatory system, how it works, common diseases, healthy habits to take care of it, curiosities, etc.).

First, both students of the pair will identify and write in a draft the information that they want to share through the presentation. When they finish, the teacher will check their rough draft and will give them a feedback (weaknesses and improvements).

Then, they will record the presentation, including the advices from the teacher. Each member of the pair will be responsible for recording one part of the presentation.

Finally, each pair will present their presentation to their other groups of the class, so they will review the circulatory system contents.

An example of recording could be the following:

Materials required

• Ipads (one per pair).
• Paper and pen if they want to do a draft before recording the presentation.

Class management

Following the tips that I have learnt in the ICT lessons, I would ask students to set Ipad aside when they didn’t need them to avoid classroom management problems. When I am giving them the instructions of the activity, I would say “Ipads facing at me”, so I could make sure that they pay attention to what I am saying and don’t get distracted. Moreover, I would assign some students to be Experts TIC, responsibles for giving support to me or to their classmates if in case we need some help.

When they are doing the recording in pairs, the teacher will walk around the classroom, checking that students are doing the task proposed and observing their needs in order to help them whenever it is necessary. We believe that it is always important for the teacher to have used the app before and have tried to create a game to foresee the problems that can arise.

In case that students would need a quiet atmosphere to record their presentation, they will have the opportunity to go to another classroom just to record it and then come back to the main classroom.

Added value through ICT

• Visual support, engaging tool.
• It involves a challenge (summarizing contents, identifying the key ideas, cooperating,…)
• ShowMe it’s ideal for reviewing content, assessing children and make them connect all the topics learnt through the unit in a more motivational way (not only making them memorise it and write it down.)
• Develop digital competence as well as linguistic and audiovisual.
• The recordings can be shared with each other and they can open it in any device.
• The recordings remain always kept and available to review, use or edit them.

Trouble-shooting

• One possible problem could be that, perhaps, student’s speech in the video is not clear or understandable enough. For that, I will let it clear beforehand that they have to speak loud and pronunciation.
• Another problem foreseen could be that students spend too much time recording their presentation, doing and redoing it again and again. To avoid that, I will limit the time that they can spend making the presentation (30 minutes maxim).

4 skills involved

Reading: Children will be able to read some keywords that will appear in the presentation.	Listening: Children need to listen actively the presentations made by their classmates.
Writing: Children will write and draw the main contents to support their speech.	Speaking: Children need to explain the key concepts fluently and taking into account the pronunciation.

Assessment:

The teacher will assess if the aims of the activity are fulfilled taking into account the following assessment criteria:

0) needs improvement; 1) fair; 2) good; 3) excellent

To be able to use ShowMe app
	0	1	2	3
Is he/she able to record his/her voice explaining the content?
Is he/she able to draw?
Is he/she able to erase his/her drawings?
Is he/she able to change the colour of the digital pencil?
Is he /she able to paste images in the presentation?
Is he/she able to enlarge and reduce the images?
Is he/she able to delete an image?
Is he/she able to share with the rest of the class his/her ShowMe record?
Is he/she able to save his/her ShowMe record?
To be able to summarize and present the key contents of the lesson
Is he/she able to identify the keywords of his/her topic?
Is he/she able to summarize the information?
Is he/she able to summarize the contents using appropriate grammar structures?
Is he/she able to express his/her ideas in a clear way?
Is he/she able to listen actively to the other group’s presentations?
To be able to work in cooperative groups
Is he/she able to listen actively to his/her partner’s ideas?
Is he/she able to respect his/her turn to record his/her part of the presentation? (each member of the pair records on part of the presentation).