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The effect of a computer-based cartooning tool on children’s cartoons and written stories

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journal contribution
posted on 2008-07-08, 15:57 authored by Mark Madden, Paul Chung, Christian DawsonChristian Dawson
This paper reports a study assessing a new computer tool for cartoon storytelling, created by the authors for a target audience in the upper half of the English and Welsh Key Stage 2 (Years 5 and 6, covering ages 9 to 11 years). The tool attempts to provide users with more opportunities for expressive visualisation than previous educational software; its design was motivated by earlier work connecting “moving image literacy” with print literacy, and it was used here in storywriting preparation work: users first visualised a known story, then wrote their versions of it based on the cartoons they had made. The stories produced are compared with stories written using two other preparation activities, one a pencil-and-paper cartooning exercise and the other a teacher’s normal planning session, which also resulted in a retelling of a known story. The study finds that no one preparation process had a noticeably different effect on the final written stories; however, the cartoons produced with the software are found to be quite different to their paper counterparts, showing a greater variety of character action, pose and interaction, slightly more variety of camera shot distance, and more pictures. Children’s and teachers’ reactions to the software tool are also discussed.

History

School

  • Science

Department

  • Computer Science

Citation

MADDEN, M., CHUNG, P.W.H. and DAWSON, C.W., 2008. The effect of a computer-based cartooning tool on children’s cartoons and written stories. Computers & Education, 51 (2), pp. 900-925

Publisher

© Elsevier

Publication date

2008

Notes

This is a journal article. It was published in the journal, Computers & Education [© Elsevier]. The definitive version is available at: www.elsevier.com/ locate/compedu

ISSN

0360-1315

Language

  • en