Thanks to technology, I can keep my teaching practice fresh even though I have been teaching for 16 years. I still get to try things I have never tried before.  

The Year 3s were tasked to give an oral presentation on the cosplay character they wanted to role-play the most, which made it an opportunity bestowed from Heaven to test out Pixton. So I generously spent two periods today so that they could experience it and create an avatar as well as an original comic.  

Since this was a learning needs class, I thought some of them wouldn’t be adept with the use of technological tools. I had to eat the humble pie because no sooner had I finished delivering my instructions that a boy had not only located Batman, but also incorporated Batman in some concert setting. I didn’t even know that Pixton carried Batman!!  

Another boy whom I assumed would have trouble fixing his avatar due to the lack of Spider-Man was quick to design an avatar that bore some resemblance to Spider-Man. Colour me impressed. They are really digital natives!  

So the whole class finished the task without much fuss. Pixton allows for students’ comics to be displayed side by side, which makes for a really arresting sight.  

Subsequently, this American was sharing his 5 Awkward Astronauts that he had bought at the Nifty Gateway run by Gemini on the crypto Discord channel that I’m active at. I shared the students’ storyboards as a way to add on to the conversation and he said something about how the students’ work quality was similar to the quality of NFTs works that are in vogue right now.  

Now I realise that he was being kind and polite but just the fact that he associated their storyboards with NFTs made me feel better about the entire lesson. That 1 or 2 of these kids might venture into NFT art in the future and they had their head start in my humble classroom.