Bitstrips for Schools

Class of the Week: Adam Urbach’s Grade 8s!

February 26, 2010 · 5 Comments

Chelsea, a student at Moraine Hills Public School, wrote a blog comment suggesting that her class- Adam Urbach’s Grade 8s, should be our next Class of the Week. After reading their whimsical Bitstrips, we couldn’t agree more!
Here’s what Adam says:

Tell us about your students’ reaction to Bitstrips for Schools.

They love it.

Your students have made tons of Bitstrips! What kind of stuff have they been about?

Everyday school life, silly jokes, and some PSA’s.

Did you learn anything new about your students through their comics?

I found out what their sense of humour is like through what they put into the comics. It is very enlightening.

How has Bitstrips for Schools helped you teach?

It has given me another tool to help connect kids with curriculum. They also make their school life more exciting and fun  by what they produce.

What advice do you have for other teachers on getting the most out of Bitstrips for Schools?

I would use it at the beginning of the year to get to know your kids. Use it mid-year to change things up and grab their interest in an assignment that you have struggled to deliver with success. Use it to let them express their social issues and discussions in a fun way.

You’ve sent us some examples of student work. What can you tell us about these strips and the students who made them?

(with help from Chelsea)

Chelsea: This one is funny because of the double word meaning. The fork is “spooning” in bed.

Mr.Urbach: I swear I have seen this one before, it is that good! She swears it’s original, and if that’s true she is one funny kid.

Chelsea: Trouble was very funny because the detective was so into his work that the sign looked like someone was in trouble.

Mr.Urbach: This is one of those jokes that is so lowbrow and funny that you can’t help but laugh. It is also feels like a joke one would tell when actually walking around and observing their surroundings, which I am glad these kids may do that.

Chelsea: This comic was funny because of the irony. They went down the street to get a watch, even though they work in a clock store.

Mr.Urbach: Evan has a tremendous sense of humour and is always trying to make people laugh. He came in today with a glue gun in his hand, posed and said “Bond, James Bond.” I nearly spit my coffee all over the desk.

Chelsea: I liked Yousuf’s comic because it was funny how Henry still stayed in his dream after everyone was dismissed.

Mr.Urbach: This is also an inside joke that may need some explanation. We did WW1 Skits and Henry, who is Russian and still learning the language, said pretty much word for word what you see here. It slayed us all…including Henry after he realized what he had said.

→ 5 CommentsCategories: Class of the Week

THE ONE MILLIONTH BITSTRIP created by Ontario students!

February 16, 2010 · 8 Comments

We just hit a major milestone for Bitstrips for Schools and for Ontario students: the millionth Bitstrip created in this province!

It’s by Sam B of Angela Youmans’ Grd.8 English class. And it’s a good one!

Ms.Youmans asked her class to illustrate an event from Canadian History. Sam chose the story of Laura Secord.

Here’s an excerpt (full strip here):

Congratulations to Sam B, Angela Youmans, and every teacher and student using Bitstrips for Schools in Ontario. You’ve created one million educational comic strips in just 6 months!

We can’t wait for the next million.

→ 8 CommentsCategories: News · Uncategorized

Class of the Week: Barb Morris’ Grade 6/7s

February 9, 2010 · 4 Comments

Teacher Barb Morris of Gracefield Public School and her students have had great success using Bitstrips to illustrate scientific principles.  Here’s what Barb has to say:

Tell us about your students’ reaction to Bitstrips for Schools.
Extremely excited and motivated.

Your students have made tons of Bitstrips! What kind of stuff have they been about?
Started out getting familiar with the program (family potrait, speech bubble lessons)  and then I created my own assessments based on learning in the grade 6/7 science classes. (Thermal Energy)

Did you learn anything new about your students through their comics?
Students that normally struggle to answer questions orally or in writing found this format helpful.   They were able to express their understanding through using Bitstrips.

What advice do you have for other teachers on getting the most out of Bitstrips for Schools?
Don’t let the students drift on the program.  Give them a focus and take advantage of the posted assignments.  Also, make your own assignments.  It’s really fun and easy to do.

Examples of her students’ work:



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Class(es) of the Week: ALL of Sandra Silver’s Grade 2s & 3s!

January 19, 2010 · 5 Comments

We couldn’t choose between all of Sandra Silver’s great classes from Linbrook P.S., so we chose them all!  We asked her for some thoughts on getting great results with Bitstrips when working with younger students:
Tell us about your students’ reaction to Bitstrips for Schools.
It has been very positive; a number have accessed it at home which clearly indicates its attraction to young students.
Yours are some of the younger students using Bitstrips for Schools.  Was it difficult teaching them how to use it?
Not at all. They caught on very quickly and taught me along the way!
Did you learn anything new about your students through their comics?
I did. It can be an interesting medium in which to view their perspective on life in general.
How has Bitstrips for Schools helped you teach?
It has given me a platform for literacy based learning that is both fun and engaging for students and teachers.
What advice do you have for other teachers on getting the most out of Bitstrips for Schools?
Enjoy the experience, focus on the literacy; that is, the dialogue added by the students, their ability to read and follow directions and the opportunity to add comments about others’ contributions.
You’ve sent us some examples of student work. What can you tell us about these strips?
As I teach 11 classes of students (SK – Grades 3) this has provided me with considerable insight into a student’s thinking, homour etc.   It has delighted me immensely. Two of these strips have been published in our monthly school newsletters.
Any interesting stories or anecdotes come to mind about your class and Bitstrips for Schools?
Well, maybe not anecdote, but many of my parents think the program is very neat and some are enjoying it as much as the students!

→ 5 CommentsCategories: Uncategorized

Class of the Week: Lindsay Porter’s Grade 4s!

January 13, 2010 · 3 Comments

This English class from Byngmount Beach Public School really understand comics, and have made some wildly imaginative educational Bitstrips under the guidance of their teacher, Lindsay Porter. Here’s what she has to say about her class:

Tell us about your students’ reaction to Bitstrips for Schools.

The students love using Bitstrips, both for school assignments and for their own enjoyment at home.  It really offers them a different way to express their knowledge on a topic – a way that provides them with the opportunity to be creative and interact with each other and with me using technology that they love.  It’s not often you hear cheers ‘yay!’ when you tell your class they’re going to be writing summaries…but you do when you tell them they get to write their summary as a comic in Bitstrips.

Your students have made tons of Bitstrips! What kind of stuff have they been about?

When I was first introduced to the website I assigned a few of the sample shared activities for the kids to use to play around with the site and get familiar with it.  The ‘family portrait’, ‘knock-knock joke’, and ‘express your feelings’ activities gave the students the opportunity to learn how to manipulate the props, use appropriate speech bubbles and caption boxes and change their character’s facial expressions and body positions to match up with what they were writing.  They’ve made comics in response to a drama activity based on the book, ‘Not a Box’, as well as a health assignment where they need to get across the health risks of smoking.  Their newest assignment is a procedural writing activity and we will be looking at using Bitstrips to present written summaries of non-fiction texts. I also get quite a few ’silly’ or ‘just for fun’ kind of comics submitted for sharing too…and these are always interesting to look at!

Did you learn anything new about your students through their comics?

I think each activity that the students participate in on the site provides a way to learn more about them…from the dynamics of their family to their interests and sense of humor.  It’s been interesting to catch all the new pieces of information that they put out there while creating their comics.

How has Bitstrips for Schools helped you teach?

Bitstrips for Schools is a great motivational tool for reluctant writers.  Students who would normally shut down at the thought of a traditional writing assignment end up asking to stay in at recess to work on their comics.  Knowing that I have something to help differentiate for those students and sustain their interest in a classroom task makes my job a little easier.

I also like having the opportunity to respond to student’s work at any time and post responses for them so that they can edit and revise their work.  It gives me the chance to interact with each student and talk to them about their writing, in writing!  The look forward to reading my posts about their work and they really do take my comments and tips to heart and work hard to make improvements.

What advice do you have for other teachers on getting the most out of Bitstrips for Schools?

Start with something fun.  Make your avatar with your class and spend time at school allowing them to play around making their own characters and exploring all the things available to them.  Take the time to make your own comics and familiarize yourself with all the tools available so you can easily introduce them to the kids.  Allow particularly proficient students the chance to teach the rest of the class something interesting that they figured out.  Once the kids realized all that they could do with the website, it made completing the assigned activities much easier.

You’ve sent us some examples of student work. What can you tell us about these strips and the students who made them?

This was a comic the students completed after we read the book, “Not a Box” by Antoinette Portis as a starting point for a drama activity.  It was just meant as a fun way to get more familiar with the website using something that they had all had fun with in another class.

The ‘No Smoking Please!’ comics followed our health unit on substance abuse.

We used one of the shared activities to work on matching text to character expressions/body language.  Many of the students in the class are ESL and not particularly comfortable with the keyboard yet either, so a lot of time is spent editing simple sentences such as the ones below for proper grammar and punctuation use.

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Class of the Week: Deborah Zamin’s Grade 8s!

December 14, 2009 · 8 Comments

Deborah Zamin’s Grade 8 class from John English Junior Middle School has been making some fantastic group-work comics about responsibility and empathy.  They’re our final class of the week before the holiday break.  Here’s what Deborah has to say:

Tell us about your students’ reaction to Bitstrips for Schools.

They really enjoyed working on their assignments and I was so impressed by the volume and depth of their stories. Even from the get go, with the creation of the class avatars – they were enthusiastic. I think they enjoyed being able to login to our class and find their name on the class roster for them to click and get going and that was neat. The media literacy itself assignment was a rather serious topic on Responsibility and Empathy and yet the comic strip genre did not impede them in any way from conveying their message in an appropriatel way. I really liked the way website allowed us to transcend genres.  The comics did require use of the steps of the writing process as well – many groups went through multiple drafts. We discussed how crucial those steps are in drafting a written essay as well.

Your students have made tons of Bitstrips! What kind of stuff have they been about?

Responsibility & Empathy stories (aligned with the Toronto District School Board’s Character Education Program whereby one character attribute is promoted per each month of the school year). Also, I assigned a shared activity from the site’s shared activities on Emotions. Many students also had fun exploring comic creation and submitted ‘fun’ and ’spoofy’ comics for me and the class to share. I encouraged their creativity and enthusiasm.

Did you learn anything new about your students through their comics?

Absolutely. Making it fun means kids will write more. The website was a student-centered versus teacher-centered unit wherein students become tutors of other students and even taught me about the many features as we went along. I observed that the site is accessible and encourages all learning styles. It was similar to writing their own mini graphic novel, which is a popular genre among students.

How has Bitstrips for Schools helped you teach?

It has emphasized the relevance of media literacy in classroom teaching.  The students are comfortable with and enjoy using technology and it promotes communication among them.  Bitstrips was exceedingly easy to use to prepare a class assignment, it is accessible, intuitive and straightforward  The Bitstrips lent itself well to use of our interactive SmartBoard in the lab and other media such as video, film, music and photography. When it came time to present their projects, it was really neat to see the multiple forms of technology they incorporated into their work all originating from the creation of their comics. There was nothing to dislike about the site – I had fun myself with comics.

What advice do you have for other teachers on getting the most out of Bitstrips for Schools?

Start by viewing activities that other teachers have shared and attempt one with your class. Go through the classroom set up of names and design your own avatar to demonstrate your own motivation. Have fun with it! Give students school time to work on their projects… it is time consuming.
It is fun as a group project.

Anything else you’d like to add?

Happy Holidays to you all. You are doing a great job!

Responsibility and Empathy by Kathleen, Ioana, Jillian, and Andrew.


→ 8 CommentsCategories: Uncategorized

Art Update: Fall and Winter Scenes

December 8, 2009 · 23 Comments

Winter has officially arrived this morning on Bitstrips for Schools – we’ve added several new fall and winter scenes to the art library as well as over 40 new props. Enjoy!

→ 23 CommentsCategories: Updates

Class of the Week: Louise Zimmerman’s Grade 11s

December 6, 2009 · 5 Comments

This high school English class from Vero Beach, Florida provides some great examples of how Bitstrips for Schools can be used to teach sophisticated concepts to advanced students.

Tell us about your students’ reactions to Bitstrips for Schools.

They were really excited to do something totally different as an assessment. We do a lot of analytical writing, so it was a nice change of pace.

Your students have made tons of Bitstrips! What kind of things have they been about?

There were two separate assignments. One was during our Persepolis unit. Persepolis is a graphic novel memoir, and I wanted the students to internalize visual syntax and semantics by seeing how hard it is to create tone with images. They were asked to create an autobiographical strip. The other assignment was during a Jane Austen unit in which students were asked to depict a scene from the book.

What advice do you have for other high school teachers who are thinking about using Bitstrips for Schools?

Think about their avatars. I didn’t specify that my students look like themselves in the virtual classroom, and I was very surprised at the very creative ways they expressed themselves as avatars.  Learn the software so that your expectations are reasonable. I did a strip myself as an example for my students.

Did you learn anything new about your students through their comics?
I learned LOTS about my students in the autobiographical assignment. We had some very interesting class discussions based on some of what we learned.

How has Bitstrips for Schools helped you teach?

The Language Curriculum now incorporates visual literacy. I can’t think of a better tool for exploring that.

What advice do you have for other teachers on getting the most out of Bitstrips for Schools?
Be clear in your expectations. Students seem to be more comfortable with stricter guidelines: number of frames, content, etc…

You’ve sent us some examples of your students’ work. What can you tell us about these strips and the students who made them?
It’s really tough to choose which ones to share!  Our unit about the book Persepolis generated some very interesting discussions about identity. One of my students Linh did a strip about the struggle with identity he went through as an American boy growing up in his Vietnamese household.

The Jane Austen assignment generated some interesting versions of scenes in the book. Eric W’s strip was simple, but it conveyed quite a lot about the characters.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Thanks for a great website!

→ 5 CommentsCategories: Uncategorized

Class of the Week: James Protheroe’s Grade 6s – from Wales!

November 30, 2009 · 3 Comments

This week, meet a fantastic comic-making class from Wales!

Teacher James Protheroe says this of his prolific Grade 6 class:

The children love using Bitstrips and have used it for school work and for their own amusement.
They have used it for Maths, Welsh, Literacy, Science etc.
It has impacted on my class and my teaching because the fun element has really captured children’s imaginations and enabled them to learn more.  I have also found it a really useful tool for my reluctant readers.
Here are some great comics his students have made so far:

→ 3 CommentsCategories: Class of the Week

Class of the Week: Lorraine Smith’s Grade 8s!

November 16, 2009 · 6 Comments

Each week one classroom among the thousands using Bitstrips for Schools is chosen as our Class of the Week!

First to earn the title is Lorraine Smith’s Grade 8 class of Ecole Gron Morgan Public School in Thunder Bay. Congratulations!

Mlle Smith’s students have been making fantastic strips in English and in French, for schoolwork and for fun.  Here’s are some of her thoughts on Bitstrips for Schools, plus a sampling of the stellar work her students have produced.

Q. Tell us about your students’ reaction to Bitstrips for Schools.

A. They love Bitstrips! They work on assignments and then create their own strips at home as well. Some are doing sequels to their comics. They are also sharing what they do at home. At Grade 8, many things don’t get shared, so this is great!

Q. Your students have made tons of Bitstrips! What kind of stuff have they been about?

A.

  • Their favourite scenes from a French novel
  • An activity for their independent reading projects- either a summary, character sketch or favourite scene.
  • Family portrait, to get used to making the characters and seeing what was available in the library.

Q. Did you learn anything new about your students through their comics?

I have learned a lot about the students including their sense of humour, choice of reading materials, computer ability and interest. The family portraits let me see some family dynamics, without asking. I could see their comfort level with technology as well.

Q.How has Bitstrips for Schools helped you teach?

Using Bitstrips has allowed me to have students engaged in a writing activity, using the comics, but not having to worry about what theirs look like, as all look professional when done.

Reluctant writers are doing really well. They focus on the Bitstrip rather than the writing.  As I am getting more comfortable with Bitstrips, I find more ways to integrate it into my curriculum.  I really like the feature of assigning activities. I can easily check the progress of students, when they last logged in and anything they may have deleted. This is a good feature as the students know I can access anything.  I have used the comments section for activities, to send private messages to the students to encourage or make suggestions. I have also used this section to evaluate. I can log in at home and privately send their marks. I don’t need to drag home the marking.

Q. What advice do you have for other teachers on getting the most out of Bitstrips for Schools?

A. Don’t worry about setting up a class. The instructions are easy to follow and then use the site for tracking and monitoring.

Selected Strips (captions by Mlle. Smith):

From a book report by Lauren, to show her favourite part of the book.  It’s unedited by me!

COTW-STRIP 6

These family portraits show how details can be added to take the work to a different level.

COTW-STRIP 1

COTW-STRIP 2

COTW-STRIP 3

→ 6 CommentsCategories: Class of the Week
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