Integrating Technology in the Foreign Language Classroom

Creating Clip Art

You can use any image editor to create your own clip art. Why create your own? Becuase if you use your own work, you do not need to worry about copyright. The results will tend to be best if you use a small number of colors and keep the image simple.  For better control of your drawing tools, Zoom  in to work with a larger copy.

Try to keep the background a single color.  This can make future manipulations easier.  Slight variations in color may remain unnoticed.  You may wish to use the Fill tool to fill the entire background with a single color or you may prefer to select the clip art object without the background, copy the object, make a New image with a selected background color, then paste the clip art into the new image.

Saving Clip-art as a transparent GIF

In some cases you may want the background to be transparent in your final product, allowing your own background (not the clip art background) to show through.  Which of the following two images has a transparent background?
 

1. When you are happy with your clip-art created in Adobe Photoshop Elements and want to save it as a transparent GIF:

First select Image / Mode / RGB Color.
Next you need to make the background a Layer by selecting Layer / New / Layer from Background.  The new layer will be named Layer 0.
Now tell the computer which part of your image should be transparent by selecting the transparent portion and cutting it from your image. This should change the background to a checkerboard pattern.

Finally select File / Save for Web, check the transparency box, and save.


Another example...

2. You can try it out in Netscape or another web page editor just to make sure it is transparent.  In Netscape, for instance, open a Browser window and go to File / Open page.  Browse and select your GIF file, then open it in your browser.  Most likely the background will be white.  Go to Edit / Preferences / Appearance / Colors and change the background color to something radically different.   Your GIF will show up as transparent with the background color you selected showing through if you followed the steps correctly.
   
3. Practice this a few times until you are comfortable with the process.

It is also possible (and sometimes easier) to create transparent GIF files using shareware programs such as LViewPro (iconbazaar) or Paint Shop Pro (grafx-design) [transparent GIF tutorial from Grafx] or the tutorials from the makers of Paint Shop Pro. Note that Paint Shop Pro has been bought by Corel, but the basic ideas behind the tutorials are valid in other image editors.

For more information take a look at some great tutorials: Transparent GIFs from Wise-Women tutorials, Transparent Gif' using Photoshop Elements, The Photoshop Roadmap.

Cartoons - modified for contextualized activities

Cartoons can be a great source of context for language. Here is an example of using an edited GIF image to use a well known catroon as the basis for generating new, original target language.

After the original text has been removed, the student can be creative. Of course, this can be done with a pencil and paper as well.

With some additional tricks, you might even be able to insert new text online.