Bitstrips ~ Design Your Own Comic Strip!

Welcome to my Week 2 review!

The name of the tool I chose for review is Bitstrips, an online cartoon program. The URL for Bitstrips is www.bitstrips.com.  This tool is best described as a Web 2.0 creativity tool.

A cartoon I created this week for my Public Speaking class.

Steven was worried about what other students would think of him while he gave his speech.  Little did he know, they weren’t thinking about his speech at all!

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     Bitstrips describes itself as “a website where individuals can join a diverse and creative community to share and communicate using comics.”  This website provides the necessary tools to create an Avatar and other characters to use in comic strips that users make themselves. 

      For this review, I chose to NOT use the Education tools contained on the website.  For a monthly fee, the educational access allows teachers to create a private classroom with up to 40 students.  The Education tools are available for a 30 day trial.    See Michael Ahlf’s review for information about the Educational resources.  I chose to use the free tool which allows you to make your own cartoons as well as retrieve cartoons created by others. 

     Prior to discovering Bitstrips, I had never been on a website that creates comics.  I found the website to be fairly easy to navigate through.  I did become frustrated a couple of times trying to figure out how to get my characters to move how  I want them too.  I believe that with more practice, this tool will become part of my online and face to face course. 

    Before using Bitstrips, there are a few things you need.  First, you want to have basic to intermediate computer skills and a willingness to experiment with the tools to design and create the cartoon you want.  Next, you will need to have a computer and internet access, and finally you need to have an idea of what it is you want to create!  Do you want something humorous? Serious?  What is the point of the cartoon? After you have these few things, you are ready to get started with Bitstrips!  

 

To use Bitstrips follow these steps:

1.       Go to www.bitstrips.com

  2.  You may choose “Unlock the Educational Power of Comics” which is a 30 day trial.  For my review, I chose to click “Daily Funnies starring YOU!”

  3.     On the top right of this next page, click on

                                                      

       4.       This will take you to the page to create your account.  All that is required is a user name, password, age and then checking that you accept the terms of use and privacy policy.

 

5.       Next, on the left side you will click 

6. On the top right of this next page, click on  Avatar to create yourself- if that’s what you want to be in the comic or you can click on character to begin creating the people you want in your comic strip.  When you create an Avatar or a character, there are approximately 25 steps where you choose how you want the Avatar to look.  Here are some examples:

             a.       Choose Male or Female

             b.    You choose the Skin Tone you would prefer. Then Face Shape.

       

 

c.  Hair Color, length, hair type, hair style

d.   Eyebrows, Eyelashes, Eye shape, Pupil shape then Eye color.



e.      Nose, Mouth, Face details (freckles, wrinkles), then makeup (blush, eye shadow, blush)

f.        Height and body build



g.       Outfits- causal, formal or uniforms

h.      At this point you can fine tune your Avatar or character or you can be finished.  If you choose to fine tune, you can add accessories, change colors, etc.  If you choose to be finished, you can then name your character







    7.       Once you have your Avatar created, it’s time to start designing your cartoon.  From the top left side of the screen, click on either Comic or Scene.  

8.       If you choose Comic, it will look like this:

         9.        At this point, you can click on Layout and choose if you want your comic to be a single panel up to several panels for a series of comic ‘slides’.  Once you have chosen the layout you can begin to develop your scene.

10.       When you click scene, you choose the scene you would like from scenes already developed or you can create your own scene.

11.   To demonstrate, I chose an already developed scene- the beach scene. it looks like this

12.   From here you can see the various tools that are available including adding furniture  and props.

13.   Click back and forth between scene and characters to add people and text bubbles. 

14.   Characters can be moved within the scene using clicks and arrows to rotate their bodies and heads, create facial expressions, etc.

15.   When you have the comic you want, click SAVE in the lower right corner.  This will give you a URL for your comic.  You can retrieve your comic by logging back into the website, going to the URL, posting it on social media or save it to your computer.

 

          In Teaching Public Speaking there are many ways to use Web 2.0 tools. As part of speeches, students are required to use a Visual Aid. Normally students will choose to use a picture, make a PowerPoint or use a video clip from YouTube. Generally speaking, there is not much creativity. With Bitstrips students could be required to make a comic strip about their topic. This comic could be serious, humorous or educational in nature. There are also already made comics on topics such as Politics, Pop Culture and Drama that students maybe able to use for the visual aid.

          As on online teacher, it is important to bring my own personality into the course so students ‘know’ me. I tend to be quick witted and enjoy humor in my face to face classrooms but this is harder to get across in an online course. I believe that by using comic strips, I can introduce topics in a more creative way. These comics could be part of each Learning Module/Week. I think that students would appreciate having a light hearted way of introducing the topic. Public Speaking tends to be stressful for students so showing them that I can be ‘light-hearted’ and enjoy humor might prove helpful in easing this stress.

          The advantage of using Bitstrips is that it allows you to be creative and to present thoughts, ideas, concepts and humor in a unique way. I had never been to this website and found it fairly easy to use, but I know there are lots of things that I still have to learn about the website. Some adults appreciate comics to help grasp information and appreciate creative ways of presenting that information.

          The disadvantage of using this tool is that some people might become frustrated at the program when trying to get the picture like they want. If someone is not comfortable with ‘playing’ within the site, they may become frustrated and quit. Some adults may think that comic strips are juvenile or silly and not see the educational value of the comic strips.