Thinking in layers is a more common and important intellectual skill than you might imagine. When multiple layers of sounds that work together are heard at the same time, we call it harmony. Every song that is heard involves thinking in layers. An instructor mentally plans and processes layers of activities carried out by multiple students every classroom minute of the day. Image design and composition software is also set up to use this concept of layers. A paint program can only deal with one layer at a time but provides greater flexibility in dealing with that one layer. A draw program can overlap and rearrange (reorder the stack) of any number of layers copied from a paint program in addition to creating additional layers on its own. The collage image above was created using this concept. This same concept could be used for designing the two dimensional layout of a classroom or any architectural space. The Paint program that comes with the Windows operating system and Microsoft Publisher, a part of the advanced Office suite of applications, will be used below as examples of such software.

Images that do not appear to be in layers, often were composed in layers. If the elements of the image do not overlap, it is often impossible to tell. When spread out they appear as one layer. For example,  all the elements displayed on Powerpoint slides are also objects in layers but this seldom is noticeable.

How to Create Images by Hand

These tutorials movies below will be used to make something similar to the image above. These movies are in Windows Media Player format. Though they demonstrate an application that comes with the Windows OS, many programs are available on multiple platforms which operate in a similar fashion.

Paint Functions

1. Find the Paint application (0:12 ms; 148k)
2. Open the Help File and learn to draw a shape. (1:02 ms; 724k)
3. Insert or Paste an image file into the painting. (1:14 ms; 946k)
4. Save the painting in appropriate file formats for use in other applications (0:34 ms; 423k)
5. Determine or set an image's display size and file size. (:23 ms; 270k)

Draw Functions

Perhaps the most common program for drawing and moving objects within the Windows operating systems is Microsoft Publisher. It is sold as part of the Professional version of Microsoft Office. That is, the same program that is used for newsletters and other desktop publishing functions, also is an object oriented drawing program. As in the image to the right, use these features to create the layout of your classroom. See a larger example; click the image for the same .

1. Find/Open Microsoft Publisher.
2. Add a rectangle and label it, teacher's desk. Give it a pastel background color so that the text is clearly visible.
3. Add a smaller rectangle; label it student (for student desk). Give it a background color and copy and paste this icon enough times to match the number of students in the class you are teaching. Click and drag the objects to move these "desks" around to match their current location in the classroom.
4. Use the graphic toolbar to create, label and other shapes that are needed to account for all the furniture and technology in the room and the location of windows and doors.
5. Put a rug under a portion of your room, a technique which teaches the use the layers commands in a draw program.
6. Save this file as classroom-layout. Now go back and look carefully at the file and if you have turned on file extensions, you will see that the .pub extension, meaning this is a file that only Microsoft Publisher can open and enable further editing.
7. Save this file by the name of class-seating-chart as a Publisher file, as class-seating-chart.pub can be opened and edited again in the future. Put the names of your students on the desks and save the file again. Once printed out, use the chart in your current teaching work. Can a file with your student names visible be uploaded to your web site? No. Students names are to be kept confidential.
8. Now re-open the classroom-layout file which just has the word students on the desk symbols.
9. When finished with this room design, use a line of 3 point weight to identify the teacher "red zone" with a red circle, rectangle or rounded rectangle. The red zone is the area in which the teacher spends most of their time when presenting information.  Next, make a green shape with a line of 3 point weight  around the location of the classroom computer or computers. Should the green zone be in the red zone?
10. Save this file as a jpeg file by using the pull-down options under the place for the file name itself. Again go back and note the extension is .jpeg, making classroom-layout.jpeg a file format that can be opened and displayed by any web browsers on the planet. However, it's elements can only be viewed, not edited. Making changes requires using the Publisher file format. Upload this jpeg to your web site.
11. Scale this image so that it is about 4 inches wide and save it as classroom-layout-small.jpeg and upload this file to your web site also.
12. Take the link in the unitplan file to classroomlayout. Note that by clicking on the small image, the full size image of your classroom appears. Links in this file were already made to file names that were saved so that they automatically work and you do not have to create the links. If these links do not work, use a web page editor to change and fix the links to the file names being used.

Additional Ideas

There are many ways to extend these basic skills with image editors.

• For example, individuals or teams can work with Paint and Publisher to create digital collages of hand-drawn, photographed and scanned images.
• Teachers can quickly create different seating charts for different unit plans or topics. Once made visible by a computer projector or overhead projector, students can quickly move to new classroom formations by changing seats or moving their desks.
• Thinking about building in layers does not require digital technology. Other teams of students can build layered images with: a hall poster; a framed collage of photographs of student activities; and any kind of map such as of a school, town or historical scene. Where computers are scarce, teams can take turns work in paper and at the computer.

 

Review - How to Prepare Images for Display on the Internet

Increasingly, computer users want an image that they have created to be displayed on web pages over the Internet. How you proceed depends on how old your computer programs are. Before they can be seen on the Internet, images need to be in special formats, GIF, JPG or PNG. Not only do the files have to be in the right graphic format, but the correct extension for that format must be added to the end of the file name.

Older Software

In older version of Paint and many other software programs, the files were saved in their own special graphics format. These formats were not useable by common Internet browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. A special program was needed to take the file on your disk created by such older programs and convert it to make it useable on the web.

Newer Software

In newer versions of Paint and Microsoft Publisher (and other paint and draw applications), the user merely has to select the necessary graphic format for web pages. This opportunity to select the right graphic format occurs during the Save As process. Next to the small box where you type the file name will be a pull-down menu to click on which in turn provides a list of graphic formats from which to select.

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Updated: May 18, 2007                Page Author - Houghton