Plasq have recently announced the BETA release
of a Windows port of their Comic Life software.
The software is BETA and is potentially buggy but having said that it worked
well for me straight after installation. I used a few available images
from Second Life® drama classes to piece together an example of the output.
I then got to thinking about all the possible uses for this software in
learning environments. Combined with Second Life®, Comic Life becomes an
incredibly creative tool.
At the very least you could combine SL Snapshots from inworld events and use
the chat logs as dialogues to create engaging documents of events – think of
comic book minutes from meetings – people might actually read them!
In a school context there are many possibilities… and cross-media at that!
Think of English classes that use Second Life®/Comic Life to create graphic
novels; media classes with storyboards and crossovers; science to document
experimental procedures and observations (with or without SL involvement); SOSE to represent historical events, to document cultural encounters, etc; what about 3D visual representations of mathematical concepts and proofs? These are
just initial thoughts – but I can see the possibilities of a really engaging set
of learning activities with amazing output that is student created.
The boon in this instance is that the Comic Life software is incredibly
simple to use but the possibilities for creative expression of fictional and non-fictional narratives are seemingly limitless.