--Bitstrips--

In week 5 the class were presented with the innovation topic of Bitstrips. The topic focuses on creating cartoons using Bitstrips where people are able to communicate their thoughts and opinion's on certain topics by creating it into a comic strip or storyline. This programme is not only creative but it is also educational because it allows students to enjoy learning via bitstrips, where the students can be given the opportunity to express their opinions on certain topics aswell as read and investigate what other individuals thoughts are on that topic. From the presentation given by Brad and Sharee i was able to gather a great deal of useful information about bitstrips and how effective it can be in the classroom. They not only went through the process of creating Bitstrips step by step but they also explained its benefits and uses in the classroom with great detail. The information that i was able to gather about the use of Bitstrips in the classroom can be catergorised into advantages and disadvantages.

Advantages of the use of Bitstrips in the classroom:

1. Allows the students to be actively involved in the learning process- which the theories Piaget claims to help cognitive development
2. The learning becomes student-centered rather then teacher focused
3. Bitstrips is engaging because the students create their own comic rather then observing other people's comics= hands on
4. Implements technology in the classroom- where children are given the opportunity to develop their computing skills
5. Students are able to express their opinions creatively
6. Bitstrips can be intergrated into other learning areas such as English, Maths and Society and Environment- One example can be where the teacher creates their own comic and purposely spells word incorrectly, where the students then have to identify the spelling mistakes and re-create the comic strip
7. User friendly and simple to navigate around
8. Bitstrips can be safe for students to use because schools can place a security lock on things they dont want the students to be looking at
9. Informative- where it contains information about important issues (i.e. politics, enironment, and school issues)

Disadvantage of the use of Bitstrips

1. Bitstrips can be time consuming because it has alot of bits and pieces that can be modified to make the comic more interesting
2. Teachers may find it hard to gain the students attention when using bitstrips
3. Relaince on technology can decrease the students development of English skills such as spelling and grammar because unfortunately if they spell a word incorrectly the computer corrects it, which results in the students lacking the ability to widen their vocab.

Whilst there are more advantages in using Bitstrips it is still important to focus on the cons because children need to understand how to speak, write and communicate their thoughts properly before they begin to rely on the computer to 'fix' their spelling mistakes. However i think Bitstrips is a handy tool to implement into the classroom because it caters for a range of learners and allows the students who do not like drawing to have a go and become confident at art and technology.

There is one thing that concerns me about Bitstrips and that is when it comes time to assessing the students on their artistic techniques such as the arts learning area outcome 'students use skills, techniques, processes, conventions and technologies of the arts' (Curriculum Council, 1998, p. 54) whilst they can be assessed on the technology part for Bitstrips what happens when you need the students to create a self portrait or dance production (keeping in mind it needs to be done manually) and the students simply ask to use bitstrips to do this but the teacher say's no because they need to assess the students on their ability! Would it not cause problems, because the students would question as to what the difference is if they use bitstrips or not??