Creating Animations in StarOffice 5.2

Written by Buzz Eyler and Janet Bertoldi

Overview: Animations are a series of pictures drawn on the computer by the student and displayed in rapid, sequential manner so as to appear to be moving. Teaching students to create animations provides them practice in many skills including: planning, sequencing, critical thinking, collaboration, writing and using the computer to create illustrations to name a few. Below we have given you the steps necessary to teach this process in StarOffice 5.2.

1.Open a new image:

2.You will be asked the size of the image to create. Remember that images are displayed in pixels on the screen. The formula is: 72 pixels=one inch. The default size is 256 pixels, about 3 ½ by 3 ½  inches. This is a good size and the image can be resized in the document later.

3.Use the tool bar on the left side and top to select the tools for drawing and the specifics of how the tool is to be configured.

4.You may now begin drawing the first image to be displayed. The basic process is to draw a little, copy the image, insert a new image, paste and add some more. Then repeat this process until you have all the images drawn.

5.After all the images are created, the student must now determine how long each of the images is to be displayed. Be sure the image you want to time is displayed. RIGHT CLICK on the image tab (along the bottom) to choose and set IMAGE PROPERTIES. One of the choices is TIMEOUT. Use the arrow keys to set the time the image is to be displayed.

6. Now is the time to save the images. By naming the file a common name, all images in the animation are saved under the name. Important: be sure the AUTOMATIC FILE EXTENSION is checked. The file must be a .gif file.

7. When saving the file, the student will be shown the following dialogue box. Just click OK.

8. The student is now ready to use the animation in a web page, text document or presentation.

Evaluation: Create a project based learning rubric for assessing the student created animations. The following site lets you create a rubric that assesses both the process used for the project and assessment of the final project:

http://teach-nology.com/cgi-bin/project_rub.cgi

Final Teacher Preparation: Import all of the text files and animations onto a classroom Web page. Display the student sequentially, according to chapters

Extensions

Let students explore the following Sign of the Beaver Web Quests:

http://aldertrootes.wcpss.net/literature/signofthebeaver.html

or

http://webtech.kennesaw.edu/paustin/wquest.htm