Final Cool Tool Review: Bitstrips

Overall, I would definitely not recommend the use of Bitstrips in the classroom. Besides inappropriate content and language, the application is not uploading my bitmojis to my computer from my cell phone. Read on to learn more:

What is the tool that you have chosen? What does it do? What else do you know about it?

     The tool that I have chosen to use is Bitstrips. It is a comic character creator. I know that it is commonly used by high school and college students. When I originally picked this application to review, I thought that you could make comic strips with it. I realize through working with the app that you can't create your own comics. You can only use the comics that they have given to you. There are multiple different comic pictures that you can choose from. They can depict your current mood, can send someone a message (such as wishing them happy birthday or telling them thanks), or can tell people what you are currently doing.

How might you use the tool in the classroom? Think about TPACK and link your example to it.

     I wouldn't use this particular tool in the classroom. I like the idea of creating an avatar, but this particular tool may not be appropriate in the classroom. Things like comics that give the middle finger and comics that use cuss words would make this inappropriate for classroom use.

     Having an avatar that looks similar to yourself could be useful in the virtual world, so students could potentially use this application to create a bitmoji for use as a profile picture. We can relate this to TPACK by incorporating the avatar into usage in the technology framework. Many students may want to have online discussions about content, but don't want to use their own face as the main user in order to protect privacy. An avatar could increase technological communications in students.

Why would you use the tool in the classroom? Again, think about TPACK:)

Again, I would use this tool to create an avatar. I think students feel more comfortable participating in online discussions with an avatar as their profile picture. This relates to the technology component of TPACK. We can relate this to content knowledge because we could have online discussions using the Bitmoji characters. I don't think students will get enough out of this application for it to be worth using in the classroom. As discussed before, this may be a good application concept, but the app itself is more for use outside of the classroom due to the inappropriate nature of the application.

Could students use this app to create their own digital media artifacts? What makes it easy to use? What would challenge students?

Students could definitely use this to create their own avatar! It's super user friendly. You first create a character that depicts you, then you get to dress the character. It's meant to be a public application, with the ability to create an avatar easily. Picking a classroom appropriate comic may be something that students would struggle to do. Another major issue that I ran into was uploading my bitmojis to my computer from my phone. I tried sending them via Facebook and email, but the upload failed. Students may run into the same issue when creating an avatar.

Link to the website where the app can be accessed or downloaded.

This is an android application, but a link to the website can be found at http://www.bitstrips.com/