Book Trailers, QR Codes, & Cartoons

 

    In today's digital age, librarians are embracing the use of technology for finding creative and engaging methods of sharing content with their patrons. In this post, we'll explore three ways librarians can share content: book trailers, QR codes, and cartoons/comics.

Book Trailers

    In my previous post on Infographics, the visual showed that the social media site used most frequently by teenagers was YouTube. This makes it an ideal location to try and reach patrons, especially young adults. Book trailers are short, promotional videos for books, similar to a movie trailer. The purpose is to promote a particular book and entice viewers to want to read the book themselves. 

    When creating my own book trailer, I first explored Animoto, a well-known platform for creating and sharing videos. An advantage of using this program is that it has two book trailer templates you can use as a starting point and edit to fit your book. A disadvantage is that with the free account you have an extremely limited library of stock images and photos to use, so almost all features will need to be found elsewhere and uploaded. 

    I explored different book trailers online and found that those with videos and moving images were much more appealing to me than those with just still images. This was going to be a challenge with the free Animoto account’s lack of stock videos, so I turned to Canva to see what options were there. (See my Infographics post for additional information on Canva – After exploring sites for creating infographics, the comparison of prices and features convinced me to upgrade my Canva account to a Pro membership!) While there appeared to be no book trailer templates, the expansive stock video library was enough to convince me that I could create a great book trailer from scratch. 

    I used the “Slideshow Video” format and searched for applicable videos in the Elements tab. There was definitely a learning curve, but the further I got into my project the more options I discovered for customization. One feature I really found useful is that you can move the cursor to a location in the middle of a video clip in the pages bar at the bottom, right click, and select “split page.” This allows the same video to continue uninterrupted while changing the words or other features. I also used the video to “replace background” on most pages, making it easier to manipulate other features on the page. I explored the use of different effects and animation to make text stand out as well. You can even add stock audio to parts or all of the video. While you can share a link directly to Canva to share the project, I did find the video runs smoother when you export it to YouTube and share from there. I’m sure I will continue to learn new tools and features as I create more projects on Canva, but I found the program to be very user friendly with an expansive collection of options and features. 

    I created my book trailer on the young adult novel, Anna and the French Kiss, an international bestseller by Stephanie Perkins.

    Publisher’s synopsis from author Stephanie Perkins’ website:

Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a crush on her coworker at the movie theater, who is just starting to return her attention. So she's less than thrilled when her father decides to send her to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year. But despite not speaking of word of French, Anna meets some cool new people, including the handsome Étienne St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately, he's taken—and Anna might be, too. Will a year of romantic near misses end with the French kiss she's been waiting for?

    My book trailer can be viewed at https://youtu.be/diBiaiuSqZc or by scanning the QR code in the section below!

QR Codes

    A Quick Response code, commonly known as a QR code, is basically like a barcode, but it can store much more information and be scanned and read using mobile phones. You’ve likely seen them around, as many restaurants started using them as a way to share their menu in a contactless way in 2020. I remember when QR codes first emerged, a special app was needed to scan them. Now just aiming your phone camera at a QR code will bring up the option to open the website or file it links to. 

⬇️ Scan my QR code below to view my book trailer! ⬇️

    I looked at several “free” QR code creating sites but found that most only allow you to create a few QR codes for free before needing to pay to create more. So, I was happy to find the Adobe Express QR code generator (https://new.express.adobe.com/tools/generate-qr-code). It advertises that you can create any number of QR codes for free, and unlike sites that only offer a free trial, the QR codes generated in Adobe Express don’t expire. It was incredibly easy! You just paste your link and then even have options to change the style, color, and file format. Below are examples of ways the QR code style could be changed, but still link to the same site:

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    I learned from a classmate that QR code templates can be created in Canva, which is where I created the pink frame around my book trailer QR code above. This would be a great way to create visual appeal and catch attention in the library. You can even order them printed on stickers directly from Canva.

    I also found that QR codes that are digital on your phone (making you unable to scan them with the camera) can still be opened on your phone by holding down on the QR code (sometimes twice). It then provides the options seen in the screenshot below:

    There are many ways QR codes can be used in the library. Some ways I would be interested in using them in my own library include:

• Bookmarks – A QR code linking to the library website could be printed on stickers (such as the ones mentioned earlier, available to purchase through Canva) and then can be easily placed on the free bookmarks many libraries offer at check-out. This would give patrons an easy way to find library information whenever they need it… like when they loved a book and MUST place a hold on the next book in the series immediately. (We’ve all been there!)
• Easy Catalog Access – Quick, easy access to the library catalog via a QR code that is posted centrally or near the doors.
• Book Lists – Links to themed book lists to help patrons narrow down their search.
• Book Trailers – These could be attached to either the shelving section books are on or even directly on or in the books. 
• Interactive Activities – For example a scavenger hunt through the different sections of the library to teach patrons where to find different types of books.

Cartoons

    Cartoons and comic strip are effective ways to share content because they are a visual, fun way to share information creatively. As the school librarian, it's important to vet resources and share the best ones with teachers. Many teachers may not realize all the ways comics can be used as learning tools. Creating examples of the kind of projects students could create or leading students in introducing these tools is a great way to create teacher buy-in. For more ideas on the kinds of activities and ways that cartoons and comic strips can be used, check out the article Teachers Guide to The Use of Comic Strips in Class: Some Helpful Tools and Resources on Educators Technology. The bulleted lists of reasons to use comics in your classroom and uses of comic strips in class would be good points to share with teachers.

    There are many sites available for creating comic strips, but without trying them yourself it's very hard to determine which sites would be best for teachers and students. We created comics on three sites so that we could evaluate their effectiveness: Pixton, FotoJet, and MakeBeliefsComix. My comic created with each and my subsequent evaluations follow. I chose to create a story that would continue throughout the three comic strips and focus on the topics of this post - book trailers, QR codes, and cartoons. I hope you enjoy!

Pixton

Comic Code Crusaders: Adventures Beyond the Pixels Part 1 - Pixtonville

   Tip: Click the images to bring them up full screen for a more clear viewing.

    Pixton was by far my favorite of the comic strip programs we tried and the clear winner for me! It was easy to use due to the very organized setup of features, with the elements along the left side sorted into categories for things like backgrounds, characters, and words, making it easy to know where to look. Take a look at the screenshot below of how the comic creator looks upon opening it to see how well it is formatted: 

    There is definitely enough variety to make an interesting comic! I was extremely impressed by the multitude of customization options including: 

• Backgrounds can be changed for day, night, flashback, or a certain color filter.
• Characters can be fully edited including clothing, skin tone, age, weight, body poses, facial expressions, objects held, etc. These built characters are saved so they don’t have to be recreated for each panel. I enjoyed the style of the characters as well.
• Great attention to details on the part of the programmers – When swapping the position of two characters the eye direction even adjusts automatically for you.
• There is an option to not only create your character, but to select characters that are real people like Rosa Parks and John Adams (which would be a great tie-in for use in social studies classes) or literary characters like Sherlock Holmes and The Little Prince (a great tie-in for use in language arts classes).

    The variety of options may be too much for the youngest students, but most students would easily be able to use this program without much instruction due to the well-developed layout.

    Another thing I like about Pixton is that it has great resources for educators including lesson ideas, comic school to learn about how to make comics, story starter prompts, assessment tools, interactive rubrics, and printables. Those kinds of tools being already created would make it much more likely to be utilized by teachers in classrooms. There is also the ability to create and save not only comics, but also avatars and classrooms.

    The only negative I can really say about this program is that you are unable to print or share your comic with the free account. (I took screenshots of the two rows of comics to save mine.) However, at only $10/month for teacher only access and only $12/month for classrooms, I think it is very reasonably priced and would upgrade my account if I was planning to utilize it regularly. 

FotoJet

Comic Code Crusaders: Adventures Beyond the Pixels Part 2 - FotoJet City

    You may be able to tell from my comic, but I was not a fan of FotoJet’s comic strip creator. I tried my best to make it work, but it was not easy to create at all and students would need a lot of assistance. The comic strip features you’d expect to find, like background, characters, and dialogue bubbles, where not given as options to be selected from the program. There was not enough variety available within the provided features to create interesting comics.

    My biggest complaint is that it is not easy to find characters. In fact, it was actually hard to do! There’s no characters tab, so I used the clipart tab. Clipart search says you can search 220,000+ clipart, but even when I searched for something basic like “girl” or “boy” there were only 10 pictures available without upgrading my account, and most were not great options for a comic strip, like just a head. Looking for a boy character I had to get creative searching other similar words like guy, brother, male, etc. just looking for a character I could use. I think I eventually found the one I was able to use with some version of the term “guy book.” This also meant I had no options for making my characters seem to move during the comic.

    The movement of parts is not very user friendly either. For example, you cannot move a text bubble and the actual text together, they must be moved separately, which is challenging when trying to arrange a panel.

    Despite my complaints, I can still find a few positives with this comic creator. It does have some interesting template arrangements with panels that are not in traditional rectangular shapes (though many do require the pro upgrade.) It may be worth noting as well that the templates are primarily vertical, more like the page of a graphic novel or comic book than a comic strip. FotoJet also has a large variety of font options. It was also easy to save my project. I only wanted to use features I could find within the app for my test of the program, but if you wanted to create a cartoon using pictures you already had then it would be much easier.

    I would only recommend this program for those wanting to add text to their own photos in a comic layout. For that purpose FotoJet would probably be a sufficient option.

MakeBeliefsComix

Comic Code Crusaders: Adventures Beyond the Pixels Part 3 - Makebeliefscomixburg

    MakeBeliefsComix has a relatively simple looking design. Though I would not pay for use of this site, it works sufficiently for the free comic maker program it is. It is not the easiest to use, but easier than FotoJet, as all the comic strip features are on the program. I had a little trouble finding the features I was looking for on the scrolling panel below the strip. 

    There were a few difficulties I noted that may make it challenging for students (or teachers) to use the program:

• There is no search feature, so you must scroll through all the options hoping to spot the kind of character, background, or object you’re looking for.
• The character options are quite quirky (to put it mildly), and I couldn’t even find a generic boy and girl character to continue my storyline (hence the anime characters). Sometimes I would think I may have found a character I could use, but once selecting them to see their poses, found they would not. (For example: A woman… whose other pose was turning into a fish monster. A boy… whose other poses were transitioning into a woman.) 
• Selecting a background, which was harder with no search feature, does not fill the panel shape and it’s hard to line it up perfectly with the box.
• Characters enter the panels very large, and the scale tool to make them smaller or the same size was not easy to use.
• There is no Undo button. The editing tools seemed a bit rudimentary, and I was worried when deleting something that I would end up with other parts of my comic deleted as well.
• You’re unable to copy-paste any features to other panels or duplicate panels to edit for consistency.
• It is hard to make speech bubbles fit text well. The sizes don’t adjust and there are no font alternatives. Also, the text fills the space differently while typing than how it is displayed on the comic. I had to rephrase text often to make it fit in the text bubble without leaving tons of white space or continuing out of view below the bubble.
• It is difficult to go back to past panels if you have more than 3, and you cannot add a panel between two or rearrange the order.
• I wasn’t a fan of how MakeBeliefsComix presented the final comic as 3 panels on top, one on the bottom left, and then an empty box. I would have preferred to keep the comic in the strip layout as it was when I created it. I also feel the addition of an extra blank panel made the comic appear incomplete. I tried adding 2 more boxes to see if it would look better with an even 6 panels, but it still adds an extra seventh panel in a third row.

    I did like that when selecting a character, there were a few different poses available for them. There is not enough variety on here to easily create a particular comic if you have something in mind you want to show, but if the goal was just creative writing, then the variety could be enough to make interesting comics. 

    The comic was fairly easy to save, though there are almost too many choices of sharing the comic to social media, which makes the option to download your comic harder to find. In fact, with the option being called “Save image to disk” many may not even realize that is how to download the comic.

Bonus Add-On: Canva

Comic Code Crusaders: Adventures Beyond the Pixels Part 3 - Alternate Ending

    I hate to sound like a broken record, but Canva would have been an easier comic strip creator than FotoJet and MakeBeliefsComix. (Though I do think Pixton would beat out Canva for comic strip creating due to its focused features, so I’m excited about that find!) To learn more about creating comic strips with Canva click here.

    Since my comic was primarily about using QR codes, I had initially planned to include a QR code within each comic linking readers to the comic book creator sites they were traveling to (so readers could “travel” with them!) I realized that wouldn’t work when two of the sites did not have an option for uploading pictures. My plans for each comic changed from my initial plan once I began using the features of the comic makers. So, when I saw MakeBeliefsComix was going to include extra boxes, and that I couldn’t add other panels into the middle of the comic to make it longer, I decided to utilize the extra blank for some QR codes. It seemed like the ending the story needed. I used Canva to do this, as I knew it would be easy to combine both my comic strip and QR codes on there. Canva also has a large collection of free comic strip templates of its own (that you will find by following my QR code!), so that would be worth exploring as well, just like Luke and Jane!

    Which brings this blog post full circle back to where we started! I hope you enjoyed the content I created and that the insight I shared will help you create content for your library, teachers, and students as well.

Resources

10 ways to use QR codes in school libraries. QR Tiger Blog. (2023, August 15). https://www.qrcode-tiger.com/qr-codes-in-school-libraries

 

Anna and the French Kiss. Stephanie Perkins. (n.d.). http://stephanieperkins.com/anna-and-the-french-kiss

 

Free Comic & Avatar Maker. Pixton. (n.d.). https://www.pixton.com/

 

Free comic strip maker - create comic strips online. Canva. (n.d.). https://www.canva.com/create/comic-strips/

 

Free online QR code generator. Adobe Express. (n.d.) https://www.adobe.com/express/feature/image/qr-code-generator

 

Free video maker: Create & edit your videos easily. Animoto. (n.d.). https://animoto.com/

 

How teachers can use makebeliefscomix in the classroom. MakeBeliefsComix. (2023, June 16). http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/How-to-Play/Educators/

 

Kharbach, M. (2023, May 19). Teachers guide to the use of comic strips in class: Some helpful tools and resources. Educators Technology. https://www.educatorstechnology.com/2018/01/teachers-guide-to-use-of-comic-strips.html#:~:text=Comic%20strips%20and%20cartoons%20are,%2C%20reading%2C%20speaking%20and%20communicating.

 

MakeBeliefsComix. (n.d.). http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/

 

O’Keeffe, J. (2023, August 11). How using QR codes can transform your library. Softlink. https://ic.softlinkint.com/blog/scanning-for-success-how-using-qr-codes-can-transform-your-library/

 

Photo Comic Maker. FotoJet. (n.d.). https://www.fotojet.com/features/misc/photo-comic.html

 

QR code in libraries: Some diverse use cases. Scanova Blog. (2023, September 8). https://scanova.io/blog/qr-code-in-libraries/