Pixton is a powerful tool, especially for educators.  You can set up individual classrooms, create assignments tailored to your classroom needs, or search through a multitude of premade lesson plans that suit your needs.

Getting to Know the Pixton Menus

Main Menu

Clicking on Main Menu opens up a number of different options.  There four submenus, My Creations, My People, Educator Community, and My Account.  These submenus will be detailed later.

You can also access Lesson Plans which is a searchable database of fully detailed lesson plans, complete with appropriate rubrics.  They are organized by grade level, and subject area.  These lessons can be distributed to your students.  (There will be further details on this later.)

My Creations

My Creations allows you to select from four options.

You can select Comics which will take you to a page showing all the comics you have created. If you press the plus symbol it will allow you to make a new comic.

If you select Characters you will see a number of the characters that you have used, or modified in your comics. Clicking the plus symbol will allow you to make a new character that can be used in comics.

Clicking on Avatar will allow you to create a picture of yourself! This can be used in your comics.  It is also the image that other people will see when they view your work.

By accessing Books you can see all the “comic books” you have created. A comic book is a collection of strips.  This is a great way to combine all the comics your students made for an assignment in one location.  It’s also possible to have pixton e-mail you a PDF of your created comic book.

My People

My People allows you to select from six options.  The most import two are Groups and Activities.

Groups allows you to create your various classrooms, within Pixton.  Activities allows you to create projects that you can assign to your various groups.  This will be detailed in the next section.

Educator community

Educator Community allows you to get in touch with other educators who are using Pixton in their classroom.

My Account

My Account allows you to modify your settings, and update your unique profile.

Home

The Home button gives you a brief overview of your account.  From this screen you will see the assignments you have created, access your different classroom groups, and quickly access a number of important parts of the site.

My Comics

The My Comics button offers quick access to viewing and creating your own comics.

Student Gallery

In Student Gallery you can see the comics your students have created.  You can sort by those that are finished, or those that are still in progress.  You can also limit your search by group, or activity using the drop down menus at the top of the screen: 

 

Setting up Your Class

Now that you know how to navigate the Pixton website, and create your own comics, you are ready to start setting up your classes.

To create your first class you will need to select the Main Menu, then click on My People, and finally select Groups.

From the Groups page click the +NEW GROUP button.

I recommend using the following Naming Convention for your group: [Last Name] – [Year] – [Course Code].
ex. Barltrop – 2017 – ENG2P1-02

 

Once you have created your group, you will see it in on the Group Page.  Notice the name you gave it makes it easy to identify what class it will be associated with.

Clicking the Pencil icon will let you change the settings.  Note that in the settings there is an advanced options section at the bottom.  You should take some time to familiarize yourself with those options, and tailor them to the needs of your classroom.

Clicking on the House icon will take you to the home screen for that specific group.

Finally, clicking the Eyeball button will take you to the Activities screen for that class.  Now that we have a class, we can create an activity for it!

 

 

Next Steps

Read the next part to learn how to create assignments, and work with classrooms in Pixton.

 

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Part 1: Pixton Comic Creator for Teachers

Part 2: Pixton in the Classroom

Part 3: Assignments and Students in Pixton

Part 4: Using Lesson Plans in Pixton

Part 5: Pixton – Downloadable Resources