BP2_Bitstrips

Web 2.0 allowed the consumer to become the producer of all sorts of applications. In turn, the marriage of thought, action and social media/communication has put you and I in the driver seat of the information age.
A relatively new concept in learning is called connectivism; learning through actively engaging in every aspect of pulling information. Which includes many formats through the medium of the computer, leading to the world wide web, softwares, applications, gadgets, video and audio technology and the chaos list expands by the second.

Learn more here about "connectivism" here: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/connectivism.htm

In my search for a web 2.0 tool I decided to find something completely foreign to me. It's called Bit Strips, www.bitstrips.com a comic building site and it's free! Now you can upgrade to pay for the teaching addition, though I think it's great just as a free application.

Here is your "how to" when using Bit Strips.

Open Account- This was an easy first step because I had an option to connect my login to my Facebook page. It then automatically created this page above. If I did not have a Facebook account I would simple use a user name and password, and sign in,  that easy.

Create your personal avatar/comic character. This process was very intuitive, the first prompt asks which gender your avatar is. Then the page above appears. The yellow highlighted hair/face shape above my avatar is one of the many choices in designing the character of my avatar. 

Here I am!

Once mastering the development of my avatar character I made three more characters of my classmates; Cindy, Joe and Mitch. 

You can even create profiles of your characters.

Create other characters or find already created characters. Here is Barack Obama, Sarah Palin, Groucho Marx, and Michael Moor. Just a few characters to grab and click into your comic strip.

Here is the start of my comic strip.

The layout of your comic strip. I chose a three rows, three columns.

Scene development, just like when I created my avatar I navigate my choices in populating my strip. 

I can drag scenes to my layout and characters. 

Communicate using text boxes and dragging to your layout strip.

Save and Publish

Once you have completed your comic you click on save, you then have the choice on whether to publish to the web, Facebook or use a direct link to email.

My first comic strip using Bit Strips. My theme was random acts of kindness and what it means to pay it forward. By using this format, I can see how using a comic strip in school can be another way of engaging students. As I apply comic strips to my work I can see my professional speakers using it as a tool to break up the monotony of a lecture or by posing a question, or making something amusing. The comic strip is a pleasing image and it engages a reader.

Hope you will use this tool in your future story telling adventures.

All images are screen shots of my process.