I'm Back! I'm Back! I'm Back!

Wow, what an unintentional blogging vacation that ended up being!

Between a new job and a new state (we're still unpacking!), trying to get the internet hooked up, a fence for the dog, not to mention the shock to the system of working full time again after a year "off" as a student....well. Who had time to think about blogging, beyond occasional guilt bouts!

However, life has now settled (a bit), and I'm definitely having food-for-blogging in discovering the contrast between theoretical librarianship and in-the-high-school-trenches librarianship.
But more on that later...

In the meantime, here's a cool new resource. Ohio State University has a Cartoon Research Database with more than 250,000 original cartoons, both historical and modern.

How NOT to Blog

SNB posted a great link today to a free source of very funny blogable cartoons, which are all too true! Following that link lead me to this: The dullest blog in the world. It's hilarious, and would be a wonderful resource for teaching kids the difference between diaries/journaling and blogging. I bookmarked it!

Two favorites:

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.





Toon Time

I'm on the Teacher/Librarian Ning, and a a member there (Lesley Edwards) posted that she'd been playing around with ToonDoo. I'd never heard of it, so thought I'd check out this interactive site that allows you to create your own cartoons. Now, I have an artistic deficit (stick figures are a challenge) that has been screaming for such a tool since Bill Putter, in 5th grade, looked at my picture of a deer and commented, "Nice dog."

The program allows you to choose from myriad characters, props and backgrounds, then type in your own speech bubbles, then email it, save it to your blog or del.icio.us, or myriad other options. The cartoon below is a great example of using this as a classroom tool. You could:

• Make cartoons about classroom rules/procedures
• Have students make cartoons about novels they're reading or historic events, or
  
• Create their own graphic novels (or novelettes)
  
• Make cartoons to summarize scientific ideas or research, or
  
• Demonstrate vocabulary (the 'toon needs to be an example of the word, not just used in the speech bubbles).
  
• Foreign language scenarios (it supports special characters)

Other Ideas?