Week+8,+March+8+2010

Comics are becoming much more respected especially for boys' literacy. Conventions to writing a comic:
 * Comic Life **
 * you have a developing shot: where are the characters physically?
 * Gutters: inferring, time (ie: leaving space between the shots signifies passing of time)
 * there are resources on the internet that tell you about techniques (ie: look up at a person to show they are powerful)
 * Making my Own comic (remember to export and save as a JPEG image)**

This is a comic I made in class about evil space robots coming to destroy the children of planet Earth.


 * Learning to use Bitstrips **

Here is my first attempt at a Bitstrip comic Why use Bitstrips and Comic Life?
 * it's a software with lots of neat options for making a comic
 * you can test it out using a free 14 day trial
 * you can choose expressions of characters, setting and add all sorts of objects and features
 * 1) Allows kids to link images to information learned
 * 2) Kids can find the right emotion to link to characters as a memory tool for final evaluation
 * 3) Using Comic Life tends to be trickier because you have to find your own, legal images... you can ask students to find images at home and bring them on a USB to class
 * Differences...**
 * 1) Comic Life allows you to make everything from scratch, whereas BitStrips gives you many options, but you can only use what is given to you on the website
 * 2) BitStrips seems like it would be better for lower grades because it is more user friendly
 * 3) Comic Life is a program for more mature students because they need to come up with their own ideas for formatting and inserting images

**Using** **Co-Writer WriteOutLoud** I am using CoWriter and it seems to be lots of fun. I figured out how to have the text appear right on my wiki This program allows you to type the beginning of a word and it will give you different options for choosing the word you want. That way you can check your spelling and also choose from a variety of words. You can also have a voice speak along with the words.