Technology, Instruction, Pizza (TIP) Workshops  Tags: faculty pizza technology handbrake els earlham_learning_spaces doodle google_docs comic_life instruction screencast-o-matic twiddla librarything youtube  

Using Comic Life involves a series of steps. Here's an overview of workflow, with tips to make your task easier.

• Find Comic Life on a Public Computer at Earlham

  • Tip: Start menu >> Programs >> plasq >> Comic Life

• Choose a Template and work with panels
  

  • Tip: You cannot change templates if your page already has content on it.
  • Tip: You can delete any panel from a template (click on it and press the delete key).
  • Tip: You can add panels to a template (select "drag a panel" from the resource area, screen right).
  • Tip: You can modify the style of any panel (click on it and select "style" pull-down menu near top of screen).
  • Tip: You can lock any panel so it won't move (click on it and select "details" from the resource area, screen right, then select "lock")

• Choose your images and drop each one on to a panel

  • Tip: When an image is dropped on a panel it is attached to the background of the panel. As a result, when the panel is moved the image moves with it. To modify the image (but not the panel), double-click on the panel and the image becomes editable.
  • Tip: You can modify the style of any image (click on it -- be sure not to select the panel, though, see previous tip -- and select "style" pull-down menu near top of screen).
  • Tip:  You can add multiple images into a single panel (hold down the 'Alt' key when dragging an image into a panel). You can then adjust each image by double-clicking on a panel and single-clicking to select the image you want to adjust.
    

• Add balloons and captions to a panel

  • Tip: You can add another balloon to an existing balloon (get another balloon and drop it on a balloon that needs it).
    
  • Tip: You can add more tails to a balloon (click on the "+" button attached to the tail of each balloon and move the tails as necessary).

• Work with pages

  • Tip: You can add another page to your comic (Page >> New page from template). 
  • Tip: You can adjust the order of your pages by dragging them around the page organizer, screen left.

• Publish your comic (save, export, print)

  • Tip: It might take a while to print, especially if you're using high-resolution images.
  • Tip: File >> Export >> Export to Image(s) allows you to save your comic book as a JPEG image that you can then send to people.
  • Tip: Mac users can export to PDF.

• Get Help

  • Tip: Help >> Comic Life Help

• Getting started with Comic Life. Read the documentation
• The Plasq company that makes Comic Life
• Download a trial version for Mac or Windows platform
• Comic Life Gallery — good ideas for stories
• Free cartoon character artwork. Click on 'pdf package for Mac' or 'png package for Windows'. Lots of fun here.
• Having problems with accented characters or anything else? Take a look at the PAQ page and perhaps download the komika font or other fonts linked from this page.
• The printed manual is on reserve in ITAM and you can get to it online from Help.

Examples

• The road to the Superbowl for Ana Cornide
• The bearhunters
• Collaboration with Earlham Learning Spaces poster for Collaboration Conference at Lake Forest, July 08. This show how Comic Life can be used to create an eye catching poster.

Using Comic Life with Moodle.

Having students print their comic book in colour to submit on paper is a hassle, expensive and time consuming. Why not have them submit their work using Moodle? Here's how:

• Have the students create a PDF file of the comic book. Either:
  • File -> Export PDF (lower quality 72dpi screen resolution)
  • File -> Print : PDF (Mac) or File -> Print : choose Adobe PDF in printer list (PC)
• If your students have been working as a group in this project you'll want to use a Forum for upload

  A discussion forum can be a handy way of having groups of students upload files. Here's how:
  

  1. Make sure that you have Editing switched on in your Moodle course
  2. In the week or topic section, select Add activity -> Forum
  3. Enter name : Upload comic assignment
  4. Introduction : It's as well to be very specific and intentional here about what you want your students to do. Here's an example

     1. Print your comic book to PDF using File -> Print -> PDF
     2. In the Moodle Forum, click [Add new discussion topic]
     3. Subject: type name of you comic book
     4. Message : the people in your group and anything else you want to say about the work.
     5. Subscription : 'I don't want email copies'
     6. Browse to saved PDF file, Open and Upload
     7. click [Post to Forum]
     

     You can copy this text to use with your own Forum
  5. Force subscription : No. You probably don't want students to get email copies of everything in this forum.
  6. Maximum attachment size : 50Mb should be sufficient.
  7. Grade : you can grade diectly from this Forum.
  8. Common module settings: if your students are working in groups and you have setup Groups on Moodle you can enable group mode here.
  9. [Save and Return]

• If they have been working individually you can either use:
  • Assignment - upload single file. Here students cannot view each other's work
    Quite often you just students simply to upload a file for their assignment. The Upload a single file is the assignment option to use in this case.
    

    1. Make sure that you have Editing switched on in your Moodle course
    2. In the appropriate week or topic section select Add activity -> Upload a single file (if it turns up in the wrong place you can always move it)
    3. Enter Assignment name. Make it concise and descriptive. "Assignment 1" doesn't really mean a lot.
    4. Description : It's as well to be very specific and intentional here about what you want your students to do and to emphasize the due date and time. here's an example

       Write a 500 word piece about your personal encounters with Boggarts. 
       Have you ever got the 'Ridicculous' counter-charm to work?
       Upload the Word document here by 21st September at 4pm.
       

    5. Set a grade from the pull-down menu. You can choose a numeric or alphabetic grade or No grade if you do not want to use the Moodle gradebook.
    6. Available from: Check the 'Disable' box to make the assignment available immediately, otherwise, set a date.
    7. Due date : Set the latest date and time that students can upload their assignment.
    8. Prevent late submissions:
       • No : the assignment still shows but the upload box does not so that students cannot upload anything. Some faculty go one step further and hide the assignment after the due date.
       • Yes : the assignment and the upload box are still displayed but the student's name will be marked in red in the gradebook and there will be an indication of how late the assignment was uploaded.
    9. most times you can [Save and return to course] at this point

    Other settings:
    

    • Allow resubmitting : set to 'yes' if you want to allow students to revise their work and resubmit it.
    • Email alerts : you can have an email sent to you every time a student uploads an assignment.
    • Groups : if your students are working in groups set the group mode here
    • Grade category : you can assign a pre-created grade category here. A useful shortcut.
  • Forum — upload file into a forum discussion. They can even be asked to comment on each other's work.
    A discussion forum can be a handy way of having groups of students upload files. Here's how:
    

    1. Make sure that you have Editing switched on in your Moodle course
    2. In the week or topic section, select Add activity -> Forum
    3. Enter name : Upload comic assignment
    4. Introduction : It's as well to be very specific and intentional here about what you want your students to do. Here's an example

       1. Print your comic book to PDF using File -> Print -> PDF
       2. In the Moodle Forum, click [Add new discussion topic]
       3. Subject: type name of you comic book
       4. Message : the people in your group and anything else you want to say about the work.
       5. Subscription : 'I don't want email copies'
       6. Browse to saved PDF file, Open and Upload
       7. click [Post to Forum]
       

       You can copy this text to use with your own Forum
    5. Force subscription : No. You probably don't want students to get email copies of everything in this forum.
    6. Maximum attachment size : 50Mb should be sufficient.
    7. Grade : you can grade diectly from this Forum.
    8. Common module settings: if your students are working in groups and you have setup Groups on Moodle you can enable group mode here.
    9. [Save and Return]

From Mark Pearson's "Mark's Moodleings" Blog