Week 7: Prepare to be Pixelated!

Week 7: Prepare to be Pixelated!

Intro

We all know that graphic novels are some of the most popular books all across k-12 libraries. What if they could be a vehicle for teaching and learning? With the AASL-awarded site Pixton, students can create their own comics. This can be a fun way to incorporate more visual learning into your school library, and to make sure your students are excited to create and passionate about the work they do!

Cost/Audience

Pixton costs money but it’s well worth it. Luckily, it is very reasonably priced: $10-14 for educators. I was able to play around with it using a free trial. The good thing is that sign up is very easy.

This site is for all ages. I can see first graders being able to navigate most of it, and even see middle and high school students using it. 

Features

Pixton has tutorials called lessons that each include an Overview, Success Criteria, Materials Needed, and Learning Objective options. This is great practice for students because it will not only 1) teach them how to best use Pixton, but 2) mimics the structure of a grading rubric, so they will be more familiar with it when it’s time to assign them a project. If students understand a learning objective is a goal they are meeting, they’ll be more likely to understand that when it truly counts! These practice lessons also come with a slideshow and mini activities so the students can practice using the application and try out its exciting features. 

More importantly, let’s take a look at Pixton’s comic creation studio. Students have so many options to bring their ideas to life. There’s backgrounds that range from realistic scenes like a hospital or a concert to abstract patterns and weather. There’s also an option to upload your own photos. Let’s move on to the characters! There’s a character customization option that allows you to create your own human avatar, or use premade “toons” which are essentially animals or other fantastical beings provided by Pixton. Something I appreciated was that the character customization was extremely in depth and had an abundance of options. I also appreciated its inclusivity. There were different body type options, the option to make your character nonbinary as well as clothing/accessories that represented all different types of people. The customization is so precise that you can give each avatar unique facial expressions and in different poses, too! You can also give your characters props and add objects to the comic. You can add speech bubbles and text, as well as captions and audio to your comic to bring it to life even further. The comic can be multiple panels and with all the movement and action you can add, students can really bring these pages to life and create a fully fleshed story! All of this is extremely engaging and I can see how a student would love how hands on and customizable this is. It’s so fun that I can see kids using this site both in the classroom and in their own time!

Accessibility

This site is created for all students. There’s a great amount of diversity and some nice accessibility features. Rather than just text, there’s the option to record audio and create captions. This allows the comic to be enjoyed by all students, including those who have visual or auditory impairments. The record feature can also help students who speak other languages. They could always record or write in one language and do the opposite for the other. 

Use in a School Library

I can see Pixton being used in a variety of ways in the library classroom. Students can turn books they read into original comics, and can create original stories. This would be a great avenue for some partnership between other teachers and librarians. Librarians can introduce students to this site for an upcoming assignment and let them practice it.

Most importantly, Pixton is a great way for librarians to create their own resources and avoid copyright! Every comic you make on Pixton can look totally different from the next or can follow the same style/branding, so every resource will have its unique look. This would be a great platform to use if you wanted to make digital citizenship resources or posters to hang up in the library. By breaking down complex concepts into a fun comic, you can grab your student’s attention and inspire them to create their own comics!

Conclusion

Pixton is an awesome site and I honestly wish I discovered it before I made my comic for our digital citizenship site on Canva. It has so many great features and ensures that everyone’s work will be unique. It’s both fun and functional and I can see it becoming your students’ favorite resource.

I can’t recommend Pixton enough! I’d give it ☆☆☆☆☆ 

To demonstrate some of the various ways librarians can use Pixton, I’ve created an introductory comic for my blog. My avatar is a dead ringer for myself, and I can totally see librarians using this format to introduce themselves to their class. It can even be turned into a virtual syllabus. The librarian avatar can go through class requirements and expectations. Isn’t that more fun than just your average word doc?