TIE 2012
MakeBeliefs Comix
WallWisher
Dipity
What Are These Tools?
• MakeBeliefsComix
– Create Your Own Comic Strip
• WallWisher
– An online notice board maker (or sticky
notes!)
• Dipity
– Timeline Creation Tool
MakeBeliefsComix
• http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/
"Readers in the 21st century need to be able
to analyze what they read and understand the
motive of the author and the accuracy of the
reading. They need to see themselves as
active users, not merely vessels to be filled.
Graphic novels offer a forum for these
essential discussions."
-- Nancy Frey, Using Graphic Novels, Anime,
and the Internet in an Urban High School
Why Read Comics?
• Read Write Think, a partnership among the
International Reading Association (IRA), the
National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE),
and the MarcoPolo Education Foundation,
comics can teach:
– narrative structure
– genre
– popular culture
– homophones
– characterization
– math
– poetry
to students in kindergarten through high school
Why Create Comics?
• http://www.makebeliefscomix.com
/How-to-Play/Educators/
• Pre-writing
• Pre- and post-reading activities
• Response to literature
• Sequencing
• Dialogue
Why Create Comics?
• For the pre-reader
– purely graphical in nature
– help provide practice with sequencing
– concrete to abstract transitions using illustrations instead of
written words
• For more advanced readers
– can contain all the complexity of 'normal' written material which the
student must decode and comprehend, such as puns, alliteration,
metaphors, symbolism, point of view, context, inference, and narrative
structures
– can also be a stepping-stone to more complex and traditional written
work
– A single pane in a comic can represent paragraphs worth of written
material in a manner that is effective for the early or challenged reader
Why Create Comics?
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Timelines (history, events, sequences)
Historical figures (history of, life of)
Instructions (step by step, details, illustrations)
Dialogue
Punctuation
Character analysis
Plot analysis
Storytelling
Pre-Writing Tool
Post-Reading Tool
Teaching Onomatopoeia
Another Resource
• ReadWriteThink Comic Creator
http://www.readwritethink.org/classroomresources/student-interactives/comiccreator-30021.html
How to Use MakeBeliefsComix
• http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Diagram/
• Demo Site
• Let’s Play!
WallWisher
Ways To Use
WallWisher In The
Classroom
Language Arts
• Use with an Author Study: students post stickies about their favorite
book by the author.
• Figurative Language: after reading a text, students post stickies
containing examples of figurative language from the text. You could have
separate walls for various types of figurative language and students could
write their own similes, metaphors, etc.
• Character Traits: students post evidence from the story to verify a
story character’s traits.
• Brainstorm writing topics: students post ideas they would like to use
for writing. It would be a great resource for students with writer’s block!
• Great Leads: post a writing topic and have students write various
introductory sentences for it.
• Word Choice: post several “bland” words and have students list
synonyms that would be more interesting or descriptive.
• Book Talks: students make recommendations about good books to read.
Social Studies
• Cause and Effect: Why did certain events
happen? What were the results of the events?
(economic crises, wars, rise and fall of
governments, impact of new technologies, etc)
• Important Historical Figures/Point of View:
students imagine they are the historical person
and write comments that could have been made
by that person.
• Timeline: post sticky notes listing specific events
and arrange the notes in sequential order
• Compare and Contrast: post comments about
how 2 events were similar or different
Science
• Make Predictions: before an experiment,
“What do you think will happen?”
• Experiment Observations: “What
actually happened?”
• Landforms: students create a “sticky note”
glossary of landform vocabulary with links to
websites about each.
• Habitats: post comments comparing how
habitatsare similar and different.
Other Random Ideas
• Resource Page for Students: post links to online
resources and activities related to a unit of study.
• Collaborative Planning: small groups could post
sticky notes to plan a project.
• Quick Formative Assessment
• Parent Feedback
• Affinity Diagram: collect student ideas on any topic
(What makes a good student? How can we improve
learning in our class?)
• http://seanbanville.com/2010/06/26/wallwisher-105classroom-ideas/
How To Create a Wall Using
WallWisher
• http://friedafoxworth.edublogs.org/2010/03/
21/wallwisher-in-the-classroom/
• Let’s Play!
What Is Dipity?
• Dipity is a free digital timeline website.
• Users can create, share, embed and
collaborate on interactive, visually engaging
timelines that integrate video, audio, images,
text, links, social media, location and
timestamps.
• Aaaand, it’s been running VERY slowly, so we
are going to learn a different online timeline
creation tool.
Why Use Timelines?
• A graphic organizer
– visual tool for studying a brief period of time -a day, a year, or an individual's life
– examining a topic across the centuries
– visual, mathematic, and kinesthetic intelligences
– organizing ideas
– understanding scale
– sequence of events
– project planning
TimeGlider
• http://timeglider.com/
• Navigation bar at the top (it can be moved or
removed)
• Add a title and a description, select the
starting date, starting zoom level and whether
you want this timeline to be public or not
• Create an event, and provide a description,
date or date span, link(s) and an image.
– Each event can also have an importance and can
have one of several little icons to set it apart in the
timeline
TimeGlider
• By clicking on the event’s icon, you can
select a level or size. Important events
should be bigger to set them apart and
you can easily adjust that without having
to open up the event editor
• You can get the link to the timeline, the
code to embed it into your website
– You may invite someone to edit the timeline
Other Resources For Creating Timelines
http://www.timelinemaker.com/
http://www.smartdraw.com/specials/time-line-software.htm?id=137541
http://www.vertex42.com/ExcelArticles/create-a-timeline.html
http://www.ehow.com/how_5065383_make-timeline-template-microsoftword.html
http://www.templatekit.com/tstore/product_info.php?products_id=256
http://binginfodesign.wordpress.com/2009/02/07/building-a-timelinetemplate-in-flash/
http://www.squidoo.com/how-to-make-a-timeline
http://www.learningtools.arts.ubc.ca/timeline.htm
http://acl.arts.usyd.edu.au/timelines/
http://www.timetoast.com/
http://www.preceden.com/
http://www.worldhistory.com/
http://iath.virginia.edu/time/