Comics: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

As explained in my previous blog, I asked students to practice dialogue this week on a comic strip generator website. I feel good about how things went with most of the students. Because the students had the option of emailing their work, I received over 75 emails from students, opening up the lines of communication for kids with questions on assignments or making up work for class. I also received this comic (and days before it was due!) from a few students who rarely get work in on time. I can tell that a few kids really engaged with this assignment who hadn't been connected before. What a worthwhile activity! One thing I'd like to find out (maybe through an informal survey) is whether students liked the assignment because it a) involved technology or b) involved comics. I guess, as long as it was overall successful, I don't care why students chose to do it!

Of course, as is usually true in any "experiment," I ran into a few snafus. One of the problems was that showing students the comic strip website in class was a bit ineffective; if I tried this again, I would show them a bit on my own computer, then take them to the lab to tinker around with the site a bit on their own. The other problem was that, when students emailed their work, printing the emails left the student's names and emails off of the copies. We had to do a lot of "whose-paper-is-this" to get it sorted out, so perhaps I'll try a new website next time.