Cartoon+Creator

ToonDoo is an online cartoon creator that allows students and teachers to create unique and creative comic strips without artistic talent. It was created by Jambav, an organization that is dedicated to creating unique online games that are fun, interactive, and can aid in education. ToonDoo is backed by Zoho Corp, Inc., a US based software company.

The cartoon creator has a variety of images, backgrounds, and animation that help even the most artistically challenged individuals create fun and interesting cartoons. Using these cartoons, students can use their own self expression and creativity to demonstrate what they are learning in class. Teachers can use the cartoon creator to introduce, elaborate, or review lessons and make them more appealing to elementary classrooms.

Using the character creator, students can either make an original character to include in the comic strip or they can fashion a character to resemble a historical figure or character from a story. Once the students are putting together the cartoon, they can use the large background image database to experiment with setting and plot. As the students are adding dialogue to the cartoon, they can show off what they know about a subject or use it as a peer teaching tool.

While ToonDoo can provide fun and interesting ways of approaching topics in the classroom, students may become easily distracted and get off task. Teachers may want to use this tool only when he or she is sure the students will remain on task and use the cartoon creator appropriately.

Here are examples of some cartoons created using ToonDoo. While a lot of these examples are for entertainment purposes, students and teachers can easily use the techniques used on this site to create educational comic strips and cartoons.

Teachers can use ToonDoo to:


 * Introduce a topic in a fun way
 * Make a connection between a topic covered in class and the students' interests and everyday lives
 * Create activities to actively engage not only a student's intelligence, but creativity as well
 * Provide helpful reviews for key concepts in class
 * Open class discussion on current events happening in the news

An activity students can do using the Cartoon Creator:


 * Take an event currently making news
 * Create a cartoon showing what they already know about the event
 * After learning more about the current event, the students can make a second cartoon illustrating what they now know the event to be about.
 * Students can compare what they originally knew with what they have learned using the cartoons they have created.

Teachers can use ToonDoo to design an authentic instruction activity:


 * By making activities geared towards what the students are interested in, the students will be able to see how concepts apply to their day to day activities. They will decide independently what kind of cartoon they want to create and how they will make their cartoon work with the assignment. Because they are creating a cartoon and not just looking at it or analyzing it, the students will be actively engaged in the activity. Creating a cartoon on their own while making decisions as to the layout, design, plot and setting requires complex thinking. The students will be challenged by using different and higher level thinking skills in order to create their own cartoon.

Amanda Pickett