Pixton: Creating your own comic book

Hello everyone!

     One of the things I really like are comic books and mangas. Thus, Pixton really caught my attention. The description is quite simple, Pixton allows you to create your own comic books since the characters, the background scenes, and the speech bubbles. You can sign up to the website using your Google account or creating a Pixton account as well. 

     If you go to the link, you will see that Pixton was created by a marriage couple. Their names are Clive Goodinson, and Daina Goodinson. Both of them combined their abilities in order to deliver this amazing website to all of us. 

These are the founders' descriptions shown on the website. 

Once you enter the website, you need to choose among these options.

After you sing up, you need to choose among these options.

     Later you need to complete some details about your own class, activity, people, and create your own avatar. Once this process is finished, you are ready to go. 

LANGUAGE LEARNING  

     Comics are really attractive to the humans' eyes, since they have a vast amount of drawings. Therefore, they catch the attention and interests of learners (Yang cited in Yunus, Salehi & Embi, 2012). Comics can provide to the classroom the necessary motivation for the reluctant readers, while the experienced one gains confidence and inspiration. (Yunus et all., 2012). At the same time, students can also develop writing skills by making their own stories, and then creating the illustrations. This is an important factor, since some students really enjoy reading comic books or graphic novels, but they struggle when they are asked to write something. Moreover, they need to use images in order to organize their ideas properly (Yunus et all, 2012) In this regard, websites such as Pixton can really motivate students to learn English while developing their reading and writing skills. Furthermore, is a creative way to connect the English subject with the Arts. For instance, they can work in the English class in their speech bubbles, and in their Art subject they can create illustrations that can be later transform into digital format. At the same time, you can ask students to do a presentation or even a play of their stories, which allows you to foster the English language in several and entertaining ways.  

LIMITATIONS

     The only limitation I can think about, as always, is the Internet connection and the lack of necessary supplies to do the task. However, the good thing about this website is that even when you do not have the resources to apply it, you can do it either way. You can ask students to bring materials in order to create their own comic books. They can watch tutorials on how to do notebooks on their own and then present their stories as actual comic books. It is always important to have in mind a Plan B, that can allow students to have fun when technology fails. 

     I hope this brief review was helpful to all of you. As for me, I would love to use this website with my future students. 

REFERENCES 

     Yunus, M., Salehi, H., & Embi, M. (2012). Effects of Using Digital Comics to Improve ESL Writing. Isfahan.