I've spent the last couple of weeks going through my lessons from the 2008-2009 school year. It's a good time of year to review what each class has accomplished and begin planning for the 2009-2010 school year. I have the Kid Pix and Word lessons pretty well updated (see side bar on the web page). Now, I've decided it's time to add the Gimp lessons.Gimp and Middle School
I am sure fifth grade students could handle Gimp, but I really don't have a need for the program below the middle school grades. Kid Pix is fine. In the middle school grades, I like to introduce the students to a program that is a little more sophisticated. The Gimp web site states: "Gimp is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring". I like to use it to create GIF animations with the students. I begin to acquaint the students with the program in the sixth grade.
Lessons Online
I am working to update my lesson plan wiki now with the lessons for sixth through eighth grade. The sixth grade lessons are complete as of today. I will begin writing up my GIF animation lesson this week for the seventh grade students.
In previous years, I started using Gimp with the seventh grade. This eighth grade class will be the first to use Gimp for three years. I barely scratch the surface with the avatar creation and the animations. I'm looking forward to planning a new project for this year's eighth grade computer class.
Image Citation:
Avatar created in Gimp by my son, Stephen.
