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Adjusting Digital Images

Teacher Section

This lesson guides students through:

Teachers Go to the Learner section

Lesson Information

Lesson Steps

Pre-Lesson Preparation

Introduction ~ 5-10 minutes

  1. State that the goals of the day are to:
    • Shrink images to a size appropriate for Treehouse building images.
    • Save images as JPEG or GIF files, because that is the format needed for the web. 
  2. Students open images in Paint (or other digital image editing program)
    • Guide students to Microsoft Paint via the START menu. First press START, then PROGRAMS, then ACCESSORIES, and then click Paint to open the Paint program.
    • Once in the Paint Program (or other digital image editing program), Students click on FILE, then on OPEN and use the window that appears to navigate drives and folders to find their image files.
  3. Show students an image from the Tree of Life and explain that the goal is to have their images ready to be put on a ToL page.
  4. Students view their images own and discuss what they see. Are there any obvious problems with the size? Encourage students to share problem with class and discuss briefly.

Undo and Save a backup ~ 5 minutes

  1. Before moving on to the next step, introduce the UNDO function, to let students know they can easily fix (undo) mistakes they might make during the lesson.
  2. Before students begin to work on their images they need to save a backup copy.  Student should name this backup file with a “bkup” either at the beginning or the end of the image file name. The best way to make a backup is to use the SAVE AS function in Paint or other image software you are using. Click on SAVE AS and, within the window that opens, select the appropriate folder (the students image folder) and then type in the new name for the backup file: such as bkupgreenalgae.jpg Then click save.
  3. Make sure that students don't have spaces in their file names. If they do, have them rename their images so that they have no spaces.

Rotate Image ~ 5-10 minutes

  1. Show students a "before and after" of a rotated image. Students determine whether their images need to be rotated. Ask, is the image upside down or turned on its edge? (Many will probably not need to rotate images).
  2. Demonstrate how to rotate an image.
  3. With their images showing in the Paint window, students click on IMAGE and select FLIP/ROTATE.
  4. Within the small window that opens, students select ROTATE BY ANGLE, and then decide by how degrees their image needs to be rotated—90, 180, 270. (Note: images can only be rotated clockwise).
  5. Students who need should then rotate their images's. Students who do not need to rotate their image should watch someone whose image does need to be rotated

Crop Image ~ 10-15 minutes

  1. Have students view an example of how an image was cropped.
  2. Explain what it means to crop an image and how they might use the crop function to enhance the quality of their image. (Note: Cropping is not necessary, but is often beneficial prior to resizing large images.)
  3. Demonstrate how to crop an image. HE DIDN"T WRITE THE INSTRCTUCTIONS

Resizing Image ~ 10-15 minutes

  1. Have students turn away from their computers and listen to why images have to be a certain size. Explain that a pixel is unit of measurement that describes how much digital space is taken up by an image. Zoom in on an image to show students a pixel. Larger images require more digital space or pixels than smaller images. Explains what size (how many pixels) is ideal for ToL images (450> pixels). Students view an example of an image too large and an image just right.
  2. Students determine the current size of their images (how many pixels). To do this, they click on IMAGE and select ATTRIBUTES. The window that appears displays the image size. (Note: The default setting for units is pixels, but have students check to make sure by looking just below the width and height listings to confirm that the measurements are in pixels.)
  3. Students choose the larger of the two dimensions and compare it to the desired maximum for either dimension (450 pixels). Students determine how much smaller this measurement needs to be, by an approximate percentage and write this percentage down. (e.g. Does their image need to be 20% smaller or 50% smaller according to the images largest dimension.?) Students close the ATTRIBUTES window.
  4. To resize their images, students click on IMAGE and selected STRETCH/SKEW. Students notice that in the STRETCH box, both the horizontal and vertical dimensions are at 100%. ToL instructor has students turn away from their computers and asks students which dimension should be adjusted (resized). (Note: Both dimensions should be adjusted the same amount to prevent skewing.) Students turn back to their computers and make the appropriate adjustments to both the horizontal and vertical dimensions of their image and click OK.

Save Image ~ 5-10 minutes

 
1. With their images properly adjusted, student now need to save their images as JPEG files and in their own folders accessible through their accounts.
2. Students click on FILE and selected SAVE AS. Within the window that opens, students selected the correct location or folder and type in the file name they want associated with their images. Clicking SAVE completes the lesson and students can close the Paint application and log off computers.

 

Lesson Steps

Time Frame

Students will need at least 45 minutes

Introduction ~ 5-10 minutes

  1. Guide students to this page.
  2. Choose one of the links from the Information on the Internet Section and instruct students to do the same.
  3. Ask the students to tell you why you selected the site as a good source of information (you can go over What is a quality Internet site?).
  4. Ask the students to tell you how to search for information on that site (point out key words to look for).

Searching and Sharing ~ 20 minutes

If you have longer than 45 minutes extend this section to 25 minutes or more and let students search and share for a longer period of time.

  1. Ask students to search for information on their topic using either a pre-selected site or by searching on their own using a search engine like Google or Yahoo. Tell them that once they find information on a site that they think is good, they should write down the information in steps 1-3 as instructed in the learner tasks. If you would like, you can ask students to search for a particular type of information, such as a information on habitat or lifecycle. However, you should pre-select sites for this information to save time.
  2. If students want to copy a lot of information without reading it due to time constraints, ask them to copy and paste information into a word processing document or to print the information out so they can read it later.
  3. After five minutes has passed ask students to stand and share problems they are having and strategies for finding information they are using.
  4. After 10 minutes has passed ask students to share what they have found out with the class for five minutes.

Writing and Sharing ~ 15 minutes

If you have longer than 45 minutes extend this section to 20 minutes or more and let students write and share for a longer period of time.

  1. Briefly go over Ways to use Information on the Internet for about five minutes. Coming soon: a lesson on this topic.
  2. Make sure students have written down the URL, name of site and a brief description on the site. Ask students to write down what they are learning from the site for 5 minutes. Students can stand and share what they are learning as they write.
  3. Then ask students to write what they think about what they have learned for five minutes. This aspect of their writing should become richer if the students have a chance to collect information from more than one site.

Learner Tasks

Student Instructions:

By the end of the period you should have gathered and inserted into your treehouse the following information for at least 2 Internet sites:

To add the information to your Treehouse:

Extension to activity or Homework:

If you complete the learner tasks above you can continue with the following:

Tools and Resources

What is a quality Internet site?

There are a few things to consider when deciding whether the Internet site you have found is a quality site.

Ways to use information from the Internet:

Information on the Internet

The links listed below are quality sites helpful for searching for information on a variety of mammals, insects, reptiles and amphibians. You may want to add other sites or use other lists of links depending on the topics of the treehouses being created.

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