"Show your School Spirit!"- Creative Desktop Backgrounds

"Show your School Spirit!"- Creative Desktop Backgrounds

Overview: This project allows students to create desktop backgrounds for their school's computer lab that highlight school spirit.


Objectives:
1. Students will be able to use the digital camera to capture important aspects of our school.
2. Students will create a background for their computers in Adobe Photoshop.
3. Students will learn how to create a stylized collage using their lasso tool.
4. Students will learn to apply filters artistically to enhance their creations.

Directions: Begin class by talking about good tips for taking photos. Next have students break up into small groups. Assign each group different aspects of the school to photograph. One group can focus on the sports and school mascots. One group can focus on the academics and student body. While the last group can focus on clubs and activities. All groups are to capture photos that best highlight your school. Use one class period for students to take photos with your digital cameras.

Next class have students open up Adobe Photoshop (or comparable Image editing program). Students will create a canvas with the following size: 1024 wide by 768 high (please use whatever resolution your school uses for your monitors).

Finally have students open up their images they took on the photo hunt around the school. Students will then take the time to creatively collage the photos together. They will use filters, gradients, and other tools to enhance their project. Students should already feel comfortable with using Photoshop at the time this lesson is taught.

When students are done with their backgrounds they are to save them as a "jpeg" file. The teacher or technology coordinator can then set them up as the backgrounds for the classroom computers.