Comic Strips in Google Presentations
Believe it or not, you can use Google Presentations to create comic strips and even animations. There are some great videos of animations made in GP on Youtube, you may want to check that out sometime.
Here’s a Comic Strip I made for class to introduce Cantar Del Mio Cid (We had just read it in one of my other classes, so it was on my mind.)
The tricky part is getting all of the transitions worked out and finding clipart. I recommend using sites like openclipart.org, which provide clipart that is not copyrighted, and therefore free for you to use. For this one, I had to eliminate the whitespace around our Chihuahua friend, Sr. Perro, and I colored in the knight I used for El Cid, because I couldn’t find anything suitable that was already on a transparent background in a position I liked and colored the way I wanted. (Both were done using GIMP, an open source program similar to Photoshop)
PROS OF GOOGLE COMIC STRIPS:
-Great way to introduce a Unit of Study
-Fun way for your students to present information (Whether it be a JIGSAW or part of a research project, or a summary of instruction)
-Doing it via Google Drive makes it collaborative and students can work on it from anywhere with internet access.
-It’s best for small snippets of information or brief reviews of plot
CONS OF GOOGLE COMIC STRIPS:
-It can be time consuming to produce and time everything properly
-Students may get caught up in making things pretty/using cool transitions (This can be mitigated in the project specifications, but it’s important to keep in mind)
-Not ideal for presenting significant amounts of information (especially when you consider the time put into creating them
The Bottom Line:
In my (future) classroom, I can see myself using Don Gato y Señor Perro comics to introduce units, topics, and vocabulary to my students regularly, and I might use it once or twice a semester as an activity for the whole class, and make it an optional addition for projects if students so wish. This is not something I would recommend students creating regularly in class, unless it was a 3 slide (+title slide) vocabulary review or something similar that could be created in 15-20 minutes because it is rather time consuming, and I would rather be playing language games or exposing my students to aspects of Hispanic cultures.
















