Community reviews for Make Beliefs Comix

I think this is a great tool to have students create a quick snapshot of what they learned. Since the product itself lends itself to humor I was able to see a different side of some of my students. There are not a ton of personalization options which I happened to like because the focus was still on the content. The largest downside for us was not being able to save it to a folder on the computer.

This tool is very easy to use and does not take long at all for students to catch on to. They like having choices about what to create and is a more engaging way to have class discussion around a topic that can be sensitive. It is often requested in my classroom. Although I've primarily used it for social situations, it could be used across subject areas to share learning that has happened.

I usually do not find comic strip type activities very useful in the classroom, but now I have a whole new respect for how to use comics to support student learning. The students all quickly grasped how to create the comics and how to connect the content to the curriculum being studied. Students were told to create a comic incorporating vocabulary connected to the lesson and to have fun being creative. I was initially concerned that students would not take this seriously and would fool around. I was surprised how focused they were and how committed they were to creating educational content and how eager they were to share their products with each other. So while initially skeptical and ready to abandon using this website, I was pleasantly surprised to watch how quickly students became engaged and concerned about producing a quality product. I was very careful to frame the activity and make sure students understood the requirements - content connected to curriculum, incorporate vocabulary and the comic needs to teach something based on the lesson.

This tool is amazing! Most of the time, when you think of comic strips, you think of simply fun and games, or even of mildly inappropriate humor. However, the comic characters and props available for students to use are appropriate and help to foster imagination and character development. I found the website extremely easy to use, and the students were able to figure out how to drag-and-drop, how to create various sizes of speech bubbles, and how to change the number of frames in their comic strip. I spent very little time troubleshooting or explaining how to use the website. Students were able to email their strips to me, or print them out with ease.

Students can practice writing and conversational skills, especially the need to be concise and specific, because of the limits of the talk-bubbles. The ones who like to import other artwork are disappointed they have to pick-and-choose, but for most upper elementary, this is a plus. They must choose the artwork that best complements their conversation and this forces them to draw conclusions and infer. My 3rd graders loved it, but my 5th graders wished it had a "save" feature so they could come back and edit later. The downside is you have to complete it in one "sitting."

There are many tools available for kids to write and create their own Comic Books. This website has widespread appeal and is easy to use. Students can quickly design a simple storyboard and publish within minutes.

I love to use this site to introduce story boarding and to have students create re-imagined works.

Well worth the time to look into for your class.

Make Beliefs Comix is a web-based comic creator simple enough for elementary students. It makes for a fun assessment, alternative response method, or extra credit project. The characters are whimsical - people and animals, historical and fantastical. There are props and scenes, but not too many. The biggest (only?) downside is that students can't save and revise their work. They can print it and/or email it, and you can take a screenshot to save the image, but it can't be re-edited. I know account functionality is a lot to ask, but being able to return and re-edit strips would be a huge plus for classroom use. Sometimes there just isn't enough time in a computer lab block for students to get a strip done (at least well). And even the best student-created strips could use some revising and editing... The site was created by author Bill Zimmerman and artist Tom Bloom, who together have been helping young writers find their voices for years. Check out some of their books here, including a couple of free ebooks, at http://www.billztreasurechest.com.