Project Code Name: Duck Soup
Teacher's Worksheet
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The use of backgrounds will give your students:
- the opportunity to be creative.
- the opportunity to design a homepage which
distinctively represents them.
- If you have a scanner system,
the students can design backgrounds using their own art work.
This will allow the students to mix several curricular
disciplines into one project.
- Another possibility
would be to assign teams
which could design webpages on a scientific topic or
history report.
Divide the teams so that you
distribute the artistic talent, the language arts talent, and
the computer skills talents somewhat evenly. This is an
example of how the concept of cooperative learning is actually
practiced in industrial situations.
You will need the following:
- A computer paint program or a scanner.
- A bitmap converter.
- Step 1
Have the students open a computer drawing/painting program. Examples of
such programs are:
- McDraw or Claris Works on the Macintosh.
or
- MsPaint on an IBM compatble.
- Step 2
Have the students design the background for the project. An Escher-type
background project is included on one of the student worksheets.
- Step 3
When the students have finished with thier designs, draw them
into a discussion of the design and whether it will work.
Ask the students:
- What text and fonts will be used on the page?
- Will the background design enhance the information on the page?
If feasible send the students back to the drawing board with a
sense of accomplishment and at the same time a
challenge to consider the entire page layout.
- Step 4
After negotiation between themselves the
students will reach a stage of commitment to their design.
Have the students use a
converter to create
appropriate graphics files for their webpage.
Examples of such converters are:
- GIFConverter for the Macintosh
- L-View for IBM Compatibles.
Information about these two products can be found at:
Both L-view and Gif Converter are shareware and low cost,
some versions of L-view are free. Ask at the site for more information.
Step 5
If you have a conversion
program such as L-view or GIFConverter
then simply
- "Open" your bitmap using the pulldown "File" menu.
- Use the "Save As" option in the "File" menu and name as
where the asterisk represents the name of your choice.
It should now be ready to use as an image
source or a background source. Make sure that you move
the In-line image file to the same directory as the
HTML document which uses it as a source in the IMG tag.
Provide access to the Student Worksheet.
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