Practice Making Comics with Google Slides

For over five years I've been teaching students and teachers how to make comics with Google Slides. We still use the process in my district and students still love the creative possibilities.

Recently I started introducing it in a new, interactive way that has worked well. It will allow you to just assign it and let students learn and practice right in the one presentation. It's basically a hyperdoc created in Google Slides.

Click here to get your own copy of the Google Slides presentation.

Some notes:

• The easiest way to assign this would be through Google Classroom, with the option to make a copy for each student.
• This is written on the first slide, but remind students not to click Present to go through the slideshow. They need to keep it in edit mode so they can do the practice on the later slides.
• The final slide tells them to download it as a PDF and turn it in through Classroom. I like them to get the practice of downloading as a PDF, but you can change that if it's not a priority for your class.
• We use this presentation as the first step in a comic creation project. You might have a specific project in mind or you could introduce them to the process just so they have it as a creative option for any project in the future.
• Usually after students learn the process, I show them a tutorial like this one so they can use the Google Slides app to take photos on a phone or tablet.

If you like this simple, self-contained introduction to comics, please consider purchasing one of my inexpensive tech activities on Teachers Pay Teachers:

• Comic Projects with Google Tools Bundle
• Animation and Interactive Stories Using Google Slides

Quick Image Effects Without Green Screen

Who needs a green screen for image effects?Here's a simple process for making fun composite images using Google Slides and remove.bg. This can come in handy for making comics. (I've written about the comic creation process in many posts such as this one.)

The short video below shows you exactly how I do it on an iPad. Any phone or tablet should make this easy and then you can use another device to edit the slides (and possibly add the comic elements.) Here are the steps:

1. Go to remove.bg.
2. Tap the Select a Photo button and choose the option to take a photo.
3. The site will automatically remove the background. I've had great results so far! Copy the image that has no background.
4. Paste it into a slide using the Google Slides app. 

Ideally you'll have some other background you're pasting into. Those slides can all be set up ahead of time as needed either on the same device or a computer.

 You can watch the process here:

Our Collaborative Comic Story

Last fall I wrote about an interactive story experiment I started with some students a our middle school. They enjoyed our usual Google Slides comics assignment, so we decided to start an ongoing story based on input from the rest of the school.

We started the comic in September and worked on it regularly through October. Then classes changed and I got busy with other projects. It took a lot of effort to finish it, but I'm happy with the results.

You can read the complete story here. I added plenty of notes throughout, so you can get an idea of the work that went into it.

We ended up telling the story in a variety of ways, using photos, drawings and even prose.

Throughout the project I tried to faithfully incorporate ideas from the students who followed along and gave their feedback through Google Forms.



In the final weeks of school, I reunited with the girls who started it and we brought in the additional characters. We had one last photo session. It was a hectic end to the school year, but I managed to complete the final chapter and publish it on the very last day of school.

This would be an excellent addition to a Digital Media class. The skills involved went far beyond just familiarity with Google Slides.

As with any of the comic projects I've written about, you could publish the final product in a variety of ways.

Ongoing Comic Project for Everyone

Here's a exciting project we started this week.

I had assigned my usual comic projects in the middle school Computer class and a couple girls really got into the idea of making a story. So I suggested we make an ongoing story to post on our school page along with a survey to let everyone make suggestions on what happens next.

So comics, cliffhangers and everyone can play a part. How fun is that?

Here are the few pages we came up with to kick things off. I also made a short Google Form that asked for suggestions about what the girls should find in the storage room. I gave them a chance to vote for if the thing they find should surprise them right away or if it should take awhile.

We got several votes in the first couple days and the girls are planning the next part of the story. I look forward to seeing it play out over the next several weeks.

When the story is done, I'll post an update.

Updated Comic Activity with Google Slides

Last week I assigned my popular creative comic assignment to the middle school Computers class I've been working with. I posted about and shared a similar assignment earlier this year.

This time around it was just as engaging for the students. I decided to extend it with a second part that required them to take their own pictures for the comics.

Part 1 introduces students to the simple process of making comics using real life photos and Google Slides. They don't have to take pictures for this part.

Part 2 has students make an original comic from scratch using photos they take. We use iPads in our middle school and each iPad has it's own G Suite account associated with it. So the assignment directions refer to that.

You can find the full two-part assignment as a free download here from Teachers Pay Teachers. The PDF download links to the two parts as PDFs and as Google Docs, so you can edit them to fit your needs.

If this activity looks interesting, be sure to see my full ebook (only $1), Creating Comics with G Suite Apps. In it, I explain additional publishing options and I have several tips for making a successful comic project.

Another Fun Middle School Computers Lesson - Making Comics with Google Slides

I've been posting some of the creative projects we used in our middle school Computers class. (See this post on simple podcasts and this one on animation.)

Those of you who regularly follow my work will be very familiar with the basics of this one -- Comics with Google Slides!

When we did this in class, the excitement level went through the roof! Many students in my district have learned this process already, so some took their own pictures instead of using the ones provided in the directions. You can modify those as necessary for your class.

Click here to get a copy of the Google Doc that contains the directions for students. It links to this sample comic.

Those directions take students through the process of creating a comic. It uses some of my resources that you can find on my Comics page.

Also, this video tutorial is referenced in the directions. It shows the basic process.

And in case you missed the header image above, remember you can get my free ebook about making comics like this by joining my monthly newsletter list. Please click here to sign up.

Game Design for Any Subject, Google Apps and More - Top Posts of 2015

2015 was an exciting year for helping teachers beyond my local district! In this post I will list some of the top tips, activities and resources from this blog over the past 12 months.

First, just a thought about my other blog. I love sharing resources and tips here at CG&T, but my heart has been in at my Teaching Like an Artist blog. I had a great year with some conferences, inspirational posts and even a book (digital and print). Be sure to check out my top posts there and consider following that work in 2016!

Now on to the great resources that got the most attention this year…
I ran a few PD sessions in the summer and these popular tips and tipsheets were a result:

• 4 Tipsheets for Navigating Google Classroom
• Updated and compiled resources for making comics using Google Slides
• Part of the above resources, but great to highlight on it's own - How to create comics using just the Google Slides app on your favorite mobile device

Here's an important post that introduces teachers to 10 simple, free tools for showing off any project (even non-tech projects) beyond the classroom. They range from simple to more involved.

I developed these two methods for making a narrated slideshow presentation using just a Chromebook.

• This simpler way uses Google Slides and SnagIt. (This hasn't yet been a "top post", but it is a great option that goes with this often requested presentation method.)
• This more involved method was my guest post on Free Tech for Teachers in June!

And these are my favorite quick tips from the year:

• How to record an audio "podcast" quickly and easily on a Chromebook using Twisted Wave
• Marking up images with a Chromebook and Google Drawings
• Two fast, simple tools for adding text to images

New Game Design Resources
Any teacher knows students today love games and many of them want to make games. I posted two popular series about creating games design this year. These are both non-digital game activities.

This first one is a “make a game in an hour” activity that I’ve done with designers. I started with a big picture look at what I and others have learned from making games.

Game Design in the Classroom - What I learned, what others learned, the "game jam" style activity and thoughts on developing and publishing

Later in the year I created this series, which one designer called a “baby step” into game design. All the resources are created in Google Docs for easy modification and sharing with students. It’s a flexible introduction to making games that integrates with many subjects. The flow of the project is...

• Learn the basic game
• Modify the game by adding a theme and possibly other rules
• Test the games
• Reflect on the process (This step is the key to tying it all together with your course content.)

Also new in 2015, I created this Game Design Page as a convenient place to find all my best classroom game design resources.

Updated Comics with Google Tools Resources

Last week I presented at GoogleFest 2015 in Lansing, Michigan. I showed a packed room of teachers how I use Google Drawings and Google Slides to create comics from photos. Now it's easier than ever when using the Slides mobile app.

Some pictures and thoughts were tweeted out about the session. You can follow everything about the conference using #migooglefest. Here's one attendee's comic frame using a picture we took in the session:

Just finished a day of Google PD with 5 other Brownell Broncos #migooglefest pic.twitter.com/3qw1Z9XOwE

— Bob Abel (@BobAbelWLGeek) September 21, 2015

I updated the resources on my comics site, which you can find here. Most of the updates were just in the presentation itself, but I changed some links and added some notes. The site contains information about using the comics in classroom creativity games too.

As always, I started the session off with a big picture look at the importance of creativity in learning.

How to use the Google Slides mobile app to make comics from real life photos

A lot of teachers have been using my process for creating comics with Google tools. I was thrilled to find it can now be easily done using the Slides mobile app! The best part of this is now you can bring in the real world pictures very easily.

If you haven't seen the general process and possible final products, you can read all about it on this page from my Education On Air presentation from a few weeks ago.

That process starts on a Chromebook or a computer and it uses either Google Drawings or Slides.

Now you can start in the Slides mobile app. I did this on an iPad, but the Android app will be similar.

First, start a new Slides presentation.

On a blank slide, click the + sign and select Image.

Choose to get the image From Photos or From Camera. Notice that if you use the camera, this is an amazingly simple way to immediately bring the real world into your creations!

Crop, resize and move the image as necessary.

To add comic elements, click the + again and select Shape this time.

Select Callouts and scroll down to the three comic elements. Choose the one you want.

From there, it's just a matter of placing the thought or word bubble, dragging the point to the character who is speaking or thinking and then entering the text. Here's my sample taken from a game I was playing with my son.

A few things to consider:

• While the tools are easy to use on the app, you might prefer to just use the app to bring the pictures into the Slides presentation. Then you (and any collaborators) can open that presentation on a Chromebook or computer for easy editing. 
• See my two-minute tutorial on creating the comics using a computer. The first steps are now replaced by the import process above, but the rest of the video shows the details of adding and editing the comic elements.
• You can change the background color of the slides by editing the presentation on a computer or Chromebook at any time.
• See the Projects page of my website for possible end products we make such as PDFs, virtual books or videos.

Creativity, Passion and Meaningful Contribution in School

Last week I had the privilege of presenting as part of the Education On Air conference. Jake Gentry and I did a session on my process of creating comics with Google tools. I was glad to see Matt Miller from Ditch That Textbook highlighted both of my classroom activities from the presentation.

Before I got into all that, though, I gave a short, big picture overview of why I believe some teachers are wearing themselves out to make learning happen. I presented some thoughts on the importance of creativity, passion and meaningful contribution in learning. In about four minutes I talk about things such as:

• How I breathe life into a classroom.
• Why teachers need to dream more.
• Why Google tools make this easier.

That part of the session is in the video below.

If you're interested in seeing the entire session, you can find it at this link.

Join me May 9 for Creating Comics with Google Tools

I'll be presenting in a free Google for Education conference, Education on Air, at noon (EST) on May 9.

I'll show some very creative and practical tools for creating comics in projects for any class or subject. It's an often overlooked, flexible presentation tool students love. We'll also take some time to talk about creativity in school and I'll share how to use the comic tools in fun creativity games for the classroom.

You can join my event here.

More information about the Education on Air conference (with tons of presentations from people more talented than me) is here.

Follow me on Twitter to keep up with more information as the date approaches.

miGoogle presentation for Comics and Creativity Games with Google Tools

This week I had to privilege of presenting at the miGoogle conference in Brighton, Michigan, along with dozens of great educators from around the state.

My topic was a very simple one--how to make comics by combining real life pictures with a few tools from Google Drawings or Slides.

Here's the website with all my resources, including:

• My presentation slides
• An example comic we started during the session
• Related tutorials
• Our sample project, including how to turn the comics into ebooks and videos
• Information on my creativity games

I shared many of these resources throughout other posts on this blog, but this one place to find them all as well as additional things I shared only at the conference.

If you want to see the sample comic we started during the session, it's here:

Comic Assignment with Google Drawings, Slides, WeVideo and Flipsnack

This week I continued our comic assignment with two more parts. (Click here to see how we started the project.)

First, students used Google Slides to convert their comics to a PDF. Then that was uploaded at Flipsnack to turn it into a virtual book.

For the final step, we are converting those same comic images into a video using WeVideo.

The assignments sheets are here:

• Comic Assignment 2 - Creating an eBook
• Comic Assignment 3 - Turning Your Comic into a Video

Here's an example (just four pages) of how these ebooks look on Flipsnack.

And below is the tutorial I created that shows how to use WeVideo to make a simple video slideshow. As explained in assignment 3, there is no audio. Also, there is a table of contents that makes it easy to jump to just the short parts you need based on the steps of the assignment.

Comic Assignment with Google Drawings

Back in April I posted about using Google Drawings to make comics. Since then, I've had a chance to use it in a couple settings. Below I'm linking to the latest assignment I created for our high school Digital Media class.

First, here's the outline:

• We took pictures of two students who posed with a few emotions.
• The pictures were uploaded to a shared Google Drive folder where students could access them.
• The rest of the class looked at the pictures and planned their original stories.
• Using the process shown in a video tutorial, students added word bubbles and thought bubbles to make comics.

You can view a copy of the assignment here. It has a link in the assignment to the shared folder of pictures and the video tutorial.

Follow-up assignments will show the students how to turn the images into an ebook and a video version of their stories. Those additional steps will appear here on the blog after we use them in class.

The Tutorial

If you want to see the video tutorial that shows how to create the comics, it's here. Note that this was for our students, so I refer to the teacher by name in one part. If you're using it in class, just explain your students would share it with you.

Using Google Drawings for Comic Creation

I was reminded recently that Google Drawings has Callouts in the shapes of speech and thought bubbles. Used in conjunction with the app on a mobile device, this makes a great tool for collaborative comic creation.

I put together this quick sample using a few pictures I had on my iPad from a PD day in our district. Ideally the pictures would be of actors or maybe toys or other objects set up according to a script.

Here's the process:
1)  Take pictures of the actors or objects for the comic. You could draw these on paper and take pictures or make them in a graphics program too.

2)  Upload the pictures to Google Drive using the app (if using a mobile device) or with the computer (if you created them in a graphics program on a computer).

3)  Using a computer, create a new Drawing in Google Drive. Share it with anyone who will be working on the same project.

4)  Set the background color.

5)  Add each picture and edit/arrange them. I found this order worked best overall. You'd repeat this for each frame of your comic on the page:

• Import the picture.
• Crop it with the crop tool.
• Resize it as necessary.
• Set the line width and color if you want borders.
• Move it to the correct place.
• Add the Callouts from the Object dropdown. You'll see speech bubbles in a few shapes and a thought bubble. 

• "Draw" the speech or thought bubble on your picture. 
• Drag the "tail" of it to the person talking or thinking.
• Type the text in the speech or thought bubble(s).
• Resize and move the bubble and text as necessary.

6)  Add any other text boxes or text to the Drawing.

7)  Download as a jpg image and share with others if necessary.

8)  Copy or import the image file into a shared Google Document. There it can be a page of a book made up of a series of such pages/images. You could put it in a Google Presentation too if it's more likely to be displayed that way.