Comic Life

I'm really getting into the swing of things now, so much so, I barely have time to update my blog. I have lots of stuff to add, but little time to do it. I will hopefully be posting more soon!

Today, I started a professional development session on a program called Comic Life. I have heard amazing things about this program and am glad I get the opportunity to get training on it before our mac carts arrive. I also really like the way my new county sets up PD. They use a website called mylearningplan.com and anyone doing PD can offer their classes/sessions on the site. I also get daily emails with new sessions being offered and reminders for upcoming sessions. It keeps a record of everything I have signed up for.

So I saw the Comic Life training being offered by two of my fellow TRT's and jumped at the chance to learn more. Many teachers have already asked if my school is purchasing it, which we are. So this will have me prepared before I go trudging in.

At today's session we learned about the set up of course, which partly will be done using Moodle; something else I have never used before. So lots of learning going on! I think I will like it-I will keep the blog updated with my experiences using it. Comic Life itself is really cool, at least the Mac version is. They've recently come out with a windows version too. You get to pick out templates for your pages, import pictures, play around with background colors, framing, adding panels, twisting and morphing pictures, frames, and adding in two pictures to one panel, add narration and word bubbles, and more. I also learned how to take my picture using the mac with iphoto and dragging the image straight to my pages. You can also take the photos you import and make them look more "comic like" by changing their styles and morphing them into a colored pencil look, a 70's newspaper look, or neon!

In our next face to face session on October 2nd, we will be learning more about creating lessons using Comic Life. My homework....I thought I was done with homework after grad school :) is to research some of the websites the trainers have found and look at different lessons already created. It's due Tuesday, so I'll let you know what I find.