ToonDoo

What can you trigger out from the picture above? Once you read the text in the picture, I bet your mind might be thinking about FaceBook straight away. It’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean the way the picture tells us about FaceBook. It’s in indirect way. What about an ordinary picture of the FaceBook logo or a text explaining about FaceBook? We still can get the point of FaceBook when we see the logo or the word FaceBook right? So, what’s the different?

 We learn about e-book, don’t we? A “virus-scale” of book people have made nowadays. It’s easy to bring, to read, to keep and to share with other people (I call it virus-scale coz we cannot touch the book; only see it, just like virus). But, the point that I want to say here is, when can we use that ‘thing’? We have real books around us right. So, what’s the different?

The differences are :-

1. People sometimes do not notice things when they do not think.

2. How many pages do people (Malaysian) read from a book even if they have a book in their hand?

That is us, adults. What about young children? Do we want them to be like us later/in the future? I DON’T WANT. So, that’s what we, as teachers, have to think when teaching. We have to think of something interesting that can ‘drag’ them to ‘like’ thinking and reading. Among the ICT tools that I learned and I tested, I prefer and suggest the ToonDoo, e-software for teacher. But first of all, what is ToonDoo? ToonDoo is the TWO things (pictures) above. It is a combination of e-book and cartoon strips in pictures. Why do you think I suggest this e-software?

 1) The function of ToonDoo

One of the reasons is, children like to see cartoon pictures rather than plain pictures, just like comics. I like it too (I think you too) even I’m not young anymore. The different between this cartoon strips and ordinary pictures is, a picture tells us directly about the focus thing for example, the logo of FaceBook. When children see the logo, they know that is FaceBook (without have to think). What happen if we show them a cartoon strip like the first picture above? Of course they will figure out the point but they have to THINK first. That is what I want to stress here. Teachers have to always teach the children to think. I know people hate to think (just like me) but if we give them interesting materials (above), they will think because children see the cartoons as fun things.

Second one is, if you wonder when to use e-book, now it’s the time. But first, be aware that e-book is not like the ‘thick’ book. If not, children won’t read it (me too). It’s boring. What we can do is, we just create our own e-book and simply add pictures into it so that it becomes interesting materials. Just extract the ideas from a real book. Then children will read for sure because the word e-book will make them to read. By doing that, you are promoting, developing, and inculcating children’s interest to read. If we ourselves do not read book much enough, children also will be like that. To overcome it, we have to replace the older way of reading into this techno-reading. That is the big point here. By using ToonDoo, you can do it FREELY. There are many features of interesting stuffs embedded inside that we can use to create our own comic strips and e-book in picture form. We just have to manipulate ideas (use you brain – don’t be lazy) and express it using this ICT tools.

2) The limitations of the ToonDoo

Everything is not perfect, even this ToonDoo. The Not-Best-Part of this tool is we can’t insert audio into it. But, we can ask the pupils to read it aloud right? So, it’s not a big problem. Other than that is, for comic strips, the cartoon character provided is not too many. If we use it frequently, children will get bored but, as I said earlier, we can manipulate the stuffs inside, for instance by taking pictures from other place. It is just the matter of time teachers have to spend to create it. The most problematic thing is, teacher has to have internet access to be able to use this e-software at least at home. Many schools do not have the connection but that is not a problem. We can print it out and show it to the children in the classroom.

3) When can this tool be use? 5) Which Standard?

Personally, this tool is best used at all stages. It depends on the teachers’ creativity to use this stuff (if the school has internet access). If the school doesn’t have internet access (or limited), it is still applicable but in printed form whereby the teachers have to provide the sample of the product and ask the children to do it in classroom (writing). Even though they couldn’t ‘feel’ the real thing (using internet), at least they get the idea the ToonDoo is suggesting. And the best part is, me myself will say that it is applicable for all standards.

4) Friendliness for teacher

It is user friendly, simple stuff, low cost, short time consuming and applicable everywhere and every time. Just suits the life of a teacher (always busy-working less than 6 hours per day –> I don’t know why). For me the word ‘friendliness’ cannot be used. Why? Because people will always want to do something easy in their life. Ironically, they hardly give something easy to other people (that is human)…