Discovering Bitstrips

During our “Discovering Web 2.0” class on February 1^st, I played/discovered Bitstrips. I spent the entire class engaged in creating an avatar and then moving on to creating a comic strip.  

So, what is Bitstrips? It is an interactive website where students can create their own comic individually or collaboratively as a class. Teachers can create engaging assignments in the form of interactive comics. Teachers can create a classroom, where the students can go on and create their own avatar that looks like them.

Positives:
Student engagement will be at an all-time high because students love comics.
Comics are proven to improve literacy and language skills, as well as work effectively for specifically boy’s literacy (which is a hot issue right now!)
It encourages the students to collect, organize and synthesize visual and textual information.
It builds on methods of teaching strategies – and is recognizably a differentiated instruction strategy.
It is important that teachers incorporate the media/technology in the classroom to benefit this “technological” age of students.

Negatives:
I can see this being effective for one assignment, but it may be redundant after that.
Students may get wrapped up in creating avatars and not get into the actual project (just like I did!)
You would have to assign class time for students to do this because access to technology may be an issue.
It may be juvenile for high school students. 

 

I think this would be a really great activity to engage students in creative writing. As an educator, I feel it is important to address what skills the students are gaining from this exercise other than basic literacy skills. Teachers should decide what skills they want to cover by backwards design and then decide if this would be an effective tool in your design. I, also, would have a dicussion with your class about "respect" before making the avatar. This is important to avoid any discrimination. For example, as part of the "headwear" section, there is a hijab as an option. You want to make sure that your students do not choose characteristics of their avatar that is meant to be discriminatory in any way. I do, however, think this website will leave a lasting impression because it’s fun and engaging and I am never opposed to fun in the classroom.