In paint.NET, click on New to start a new document and set your document size to 1,000px wide and 250px high:

That’s it – you’re done.

The pack contains the essential information you’ll need to keep the process on track.  It’s presented as A4 pdf’s which can easily be printed and laminated for future use.  They are not worksheets (here at edububble we believe that worksheets are too limiting), but they they are there to guide you and your students towards the elements that a successful design must consider.

The cost of this feature is deliberately kept low because you may want to repeat the process as a new group of students move into a year group.

Of course there’s the overloaded curriculum and the pressure of achieving in other subjects, but there’s also the issue of software.  This is a shame when  skills in digital media are extremely marketable, creative, enjoyable and useful in cross-curricular contexts.  It’s a particular shame that many teachers get hung up on the idea that only industry standard software will be useful.  Schools are not industries and their budgets just do not stretch to those high-end products (which invariably need powerful computers to run efficiently).  And anyway, professional software tends to be overhauled and re-released every year, so familiarity at school will not necessarily count for anything in the future.

We just need to address this issue in a different way.  Ask yourself, as a talented teacher, whether you’d give up on teaching raquet skills just because you don’t have competition standard raquets and enough court space for all your students to play at once.  Of course not.  We have to use our knowledge and our creativity to focus on tasks that improve those skills to the point that they become transferable skills.  And transferable skills are gold dust as far as universities and employers are concerned.

Adults sometimes have a hard time believing this, probably because they find it harder to adapt to different pieces of software.  With students though, it’s a different matter.  Young people seem to have an appetite for devouring technology – they just need pointing in the right direction.

So where do you start?  How about with  – one of favourite words – free?

Lets look at some free graphics programs that are widely used and well worth having.

Paint.net

Paint.NET screenshot

This is free image and photo-editing software for Windows PC’s that would easily cater for the needs of a primary school and secondary school students could go a long way with it.  It’s interface takes a bit of getting used to because some of its tools are in separate mini-windows.  That’s nice if you want to move them around to suit your preference, but you might prefer it if things stayed where they were.  It has a lot of built in effects (such as blur effects) which makes it easy to create an interesting image, and there are intuitive tools for quick image fixes such as cropping and removing red-eye.  Crucially, and like Photoshop (TM), Paint.NET allows you to build up an image in separate layers and gives you control over how those layers blend together.  There’s also a history function, so you can undo that purple hair or that accidentally cropped nose.

You can obtain Paint.NET by clicking on the following icon:

Gimp

gimp screenshot

Gimp is also completely free, but unlike Paint.NET is also available for MAC OSX and various Linux operating systems.  Gimp is a powerful piece of software and it has its own special character.  Many people are great fans of gimp but it does take a lot of getting used to.  It’s somewhat idiosyncratic and tends to use rather obscure names for some of its functions.  I would go as far as saying thatyou shouldn’t expect to use gimp without looking through a few online tutorials, of which there are many on gimp’s site (gimp tutorials).  For this reason, I do not recommend gimp to primary schools – it needs a certain commitment of time.

Like Paint.NET, gimp’s panels of tools are separate windows but some panels can be docked within others to create a custom setup.  There are some excellent photo enhancement and correction tools and I like the way that gimp can save to different image formats without needing a separate export option.  Gimp allows you to build up images in layers and control the interaction of layers, as well as a host of other features.  Gimp may be of interest to older secondary school students who can’t afford expensive software, but would like to experiment with graphics at home.  You can download gimp from their website via the following link: gimp website.

Serif DrawPlus Starter Edition

serif DrawPlus starter edition

Unlike the first two, this is a free, cut-down version of a commercial product.  It is not trial software and it doesn’t expire after so many days.  Serif give this away to encourage you to upgrade to their paid-for software.  That’s fine so long as you don’t mind receiving a few emails from Serif.  I have used Serif products very successfully with primary school students.  They tend to be intuitive, easy to learn and easy to use.  There are plenty of built-in features and it’s possible to produce good results without a steep learning curve.  If you and your students are enjoying using a free Serif product, then it may be worth your while to read the special offer emails from Serif.  You may find that you’re offered a half-price upgrade and personally, I’ve found that these are genuine offers.

I have used Serif products myself and I find them to be a good halfway house between free products and expensive high-end software.  They are reliable and intuitive enough to allow you to focus your teaching on the skills and processes needed to produce a good result, rather than wasting time with technical issues. For this reason, edububble has become an affiliate for Serif (if you click on a link from our site and then buy software, we will receive a small payment from Serif).

For a long time, to be a full citizen required access to information and gaining that access became a cornerstone of education.

Today, this access isn’t enough.  Today, to fulfil our role as citizens, we need and demand the ability to create our own sources of information.  We want to be publishers.  This, you might say, is nothing new.  The Eighteenth Century saw a boom in publishing, from pamphleteers to poets.  Then, as now, developments in communication were driven by advances in technology.  Their printing presses allowed one person to propagate their ideas to many.  And today, it is our technology that sets us apart from our ancestors.  Today, our web-based technologies allow us to interact on a global scale.  We don’t just propagate – we collaborate.  We seem to have a need to share our publishing experience with others.  Do we continue to tweet if no-one follows? Do we blog away indefinitely if no-one comments?

We have come to expect a response to our opinions.  And we have come to understand the power that the web can give us as citizens.  Online petitions, facebook groups, blogs, forums, wikis, feedback forms,campaigning websites – all part of our determination to have our say.

Perhaps your edububble site will be an exploration of ideas, a force for change, a forum for dissent, a voice that needs to be heard.

Perhaps, citizen, it’s time for you to think less about contributing to other people’s websites and more about taking charge of your own.

Keyboard shortcuts are much quicker than using the mouse because you don’t have to take your hands away from the keyboard.

They’re easily learnt and once you’ve mastered them, you’ll wonder how you ever managed without them.

Simply click on the following link to download the sheet as a pdf.

The sheet is A4 size so ideal for laminating and displaying alongside your PC’s or laptops.

Remember, if you have any problems, just raise a support ticket (basic account) or send us an email (pro account) and we’ll soon have you up and running again.

• Provide a focus for an extra-curricular group
• Use as an online bulletin board for news and events