Cartoon

Perspectives on Communication

*One alternate note, I was very taken back by the use of stereotypical, if not highly insensitive, racial and gender biased character options in this app. I would not recommend this application, "wittycomics.com", be used with students for this reason.

How & why was the Cartoon created

The cartoon at left was developed as part of an activity to showcase various methods and mediums for communicating ideas and concepts with students. The application chosen to demonstrate the cartoon medium was a website called "wittycomics.com". For this example I took a look at various potential perspectives on the communication skills of young adults. The website for creating this comic was very simplistic and seemed to be using some older web 1.0 coding elements rather than providing more robust options. However, it served my basic needs for the task at hand and allowed for rapid deployment with minimal learning curve.

How are Comics used

Comics are a great mix of textual information and graphical subtext in conveying a message. From the selection of the dialogue to the images and characters used, each element is (or should be) specifically chosen to add clarity, context, or even comedy to the message. Comic applications can be used by instructors to create alternative, or more interesting ways to provide information. Students can use comics in a similar way to summarize complex information into a simple, easy to understand format. It can help them to take complex ideas, break them down into easily digestible parts (frames), and express those ideas to others.

How do Comics enhance learning

Students typically see important information provided in the form of paragraph text with the occasional bulleted list, graphic, or image. Cartoons are often seen as fun, or funny, such as the comics section of a newspaper or in comic books themselves. They may also been seen as a political or social device. In any case, a student must be able to discern when comic information is for entertainment and when it's delivering a message, or when it's doing both.

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