MAGIC Comenius comics!

It's been over two months now that MAGIC Comenius students have been experimenting with comics. Using pixton.com they tried to create their characters and stories about social media, advertising, our visits to the Netherlands and Slovenia and the project itself.

Here are some of their comics:

You may view some comics from students from Slovakia at:

http://Pixton.com/gr/:w4u2qs6n

http://Pixton.com/gr/:dp5ci2cs

http://Pixton.com/gr/:t4d169l2

http://Pixton.com/gr/:ifztqcfs

http://Pixton.com/gr/:szb0524x

and one from Slovenia at: http://Pixton.com/gr/:qwz7k3ca.

Have fun!

Creating comics online

This week some of our students have created some comics using pixton.com. You may view their stories on their blogs!

1. Greece
2. School violence
3. It must be a hoax!
4. Car advertisement
5. Would you like to join?
6. Best dancer ever (starring Despina Tsakiri)

Brochures, comics and online ads!

Another meeting of our MAGIC Comenius team was held on Tuesday, 18 February 2014. As we finished up our fifth week about persuasive techniques, our discussions continued to be very interesting and informative about advertising.

 

 
We loved the ideas on the advertising topic. Our students used tools such as Lucidpress, Get Smart PBS Kids online ad creation tool, pixton.com and ReadWriteThink.org interactive comics to create their own digital ads.

You may access students blogs to view a brochure about cars, a brochure about chocolate, a comic advertisement about cars, one about a telecommunication company and another one about a dancer!

Thank you for sharing your ideas as well as your questions and concerns about ads. We’ll see you in Week 6.

Persuasive techniques in ads

Last week we looked at how ads may generalize, scare and/or exaggerate to persuade their audience. This week, we will look at persuasive techniques in ads by planning and putting in action those techniques. We will work in teams the following topics: brochure creation, comics creation and video ads. In any case and team you work with, just remember there are 3 ways to create an advertisement: write, design and test the advertisement.

Topic 1: Brochure creation

In this team you will first look at some brochures and then use the investigation sheet and  draw conclusions about the characteristics of brochures and how those characteristics are responses to the intended audiences and purposes. Then you will work with these inquiry sheet and assignment to be able to interactively create  newspapers, brochures, and flyers.

Then you may try Lucidpress a free online tool to create your own brochures!

Topic 2: Comics creation
Can comics be used in advertising? Check out these comic book ads!

By Bianka P., MAGIC Comenius student using pixton.com

You will have the chance to work with the Comic Creator that invites you to compose your own comic strips. You can use the Comic Strip Planning Sheet, a printable PDF that you can use to draft and revise your work before creating and printing your final comics. After completing your comic, you have the ability to print out and illustrate your final versions for feedback and assessment.Those of you working with Pixton.com may use this Comic Strip Planning Sheet to set up your work as well.

Topic 3: Get creative online by creating your own ad.

Acknowledgement: See the ‘Brochures: Writing for Audience and Purpose' lesson by Deborah Dean provided by ReadWriteThink.org, a website developed by the International Reading Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, with support from the Verizon Foundation.

Online comics started!

Online comics creation has started, so we thought to give pixton.com a try...

Instructions to Students:
Identify a strategy to use in locating information to support your ideas for our MAGIC Comenius project with respect to social media, advertising, our visit to the Neteherlands and Slovenia and create a comic demonstrating this experience.

Examples of strategies for locating information to support ideas:

- identify a range of sources that could provide appropriate information relevant to social media such as books, journals, community-based newspapers, television programs, online databases, and websites

- develop and use a detailed template to evaluate sources for reliability, objectivity, and comprehensiveness

- use key word searches and other browsing strategies when using social media, advertisments etc to locate information relevant to our project.

Use speech bubbles and/or captions to provide a narrative or commentary.
Choose relevant props and/or backgrounds to help establish the theme and setting, and to make your comic vivid and interesting.

The attached comic is just an example.

Happy creating!

Are you ready for our online comic book?

Today we set up our accounts at Pixton.com so that students can create their online comic books.

So we formed a group of fifteen students from 7 partner schools participating in the MAGIC Comenius project that will have the chance to unleash their creativity, express their selves and make their own art about social media, advertising and our visits to the Netherlands and Slovenia.

John, Panagiota, Anastasis and Marios started getting familiar with Pixton's environment by creating the characters and setting up their scenarios.

So please come back to our blog to see and enjoy students comics!