Kabaam! Kids create with Comics

Most of my conversations about apps and ipads these days seem to be about having kids "create" not "consume" content when it comes to ipads and apps. I think students need a healthy balance of both, but students really shine when given a creation app and are asked to show how they have understood or processed content. My students have been working on biomes and recently transitions to cells and cell parts. Science is often taught as "content" but is filled with opportunities to apply, create, and investigate. I introduced this app today and then had students go straight to work. We talked about ideas of screenshots, drawing images and taking a picture, or using classmates as characters in the comic. By far the most popular was including classmates and even me in their comic. It was also a quick way to see if their were misconceptions. A few of the students wrote about cells as being "on" plants and animals. A few others were confused by the two images as plant or animal from the samples in class. As a science teacher another great feature of the ipad is the camera can take a photo through the microscope lens. I had head of this on twitter, and trying it was easy for students too. They liked being able to have an "image" from the microscope to use when creating!