Cool Tools for you #2

This is my Cool Tool for the week!

It is week two of looking at Cools Tools online for possible help teaching in classrooms.  This week I looked at the Tool called Storyboardthat, this tool is a comic building tool that you can create just about any scene with people, posters, writing and so much more. Within the Storyboardthat you can create your own comic story, you can view what other people have created as well. This website lets you go in and start creating a story, but once you are done it is super easy to go back in and edit if you ever want too.  Along with just these stories, there are groups you can join such as for teachers and for business, although these would be good to join (especially for future teachers) to join these groups they cost money to join.

This tool would be fun and good to use within a classroom. Storyboardthat would be a good creative way to keep kids interested in the subject by have a variety of ways to look at it. Because these are comics, there is not a lot of reading, they are simple and too the point.  To create a comic you would most definitely have to know your content in which you are teaching so that you can create a simple helpful way of showing kids what to do. In order to use this tool, you must have a clear idea of what you want to show the kids.  Because it is a comic you must be able to simply put some idea into a short and easy to follow way.

If the students started to look bored or overwhelmed with this a particular subject or lesson this would be a good way to show them that it can be simple but also could be a creative way to peck there interest in the subject or lesson. In a classroom you could also use this a good way to introduce a new topic, or a good attention getter at the begin of the class.

This is a very simple way to gets students involved as well. For any presentation project they might have, this could be an easy way to have them create and really show their understanding. This would really test students understanding of the matter if they were to create their own, because this would require them to really think about the material and then apply it to a scenario with dialog and also creativity. This is simple in the means of very straight forward, all the tools you need to create a comic is right there on top of the comic strip. There are so many different options to choose from so you are not just stuck with the same things all the time.

A little trouble may come from having time and patience. In order to create a good comic you need to have the time to put in the effort just to have a good story line and then also to play the all the piece of putting the actual story line together.  This story that I put together took me about 4-5 hours just to create a simple story. So that could potentially be a big challenge.

Make sure to check out Storyboardthat and start creating your own story board!