Advisory Class and Photoshop

Some of the 6th Grade Advisory students used Photoshop to edit advertisements that entice young people to smoke or drink. The students changed the ads so that they showed what really happens to a person who smokes or drinks in excess. This lesson took about four class periods to complete.

Ancient India and Photoshop

Some of the 6th Grade Social Studies students used Photoshop to create a poster that detailed different aspects of the ancient Indian society. This project took three class periods to complete.

Medieval Fair, Google Docs and Photoshop

The 7th Grade Social Studies students began this project by spending five days in the lab doing research that answered questions to a webquest. Students used Google Docs to share documents with their team members and then proceeded to complete the research.

Once they finished, students used Photoshop to create graphics that would serve two purposes: decorate their booth, and explain to visitors how their medieval group lived during that time. This part of the project took four days.

Healthy Choices and Photoshop

During the Middle School Health Week, the 7th Grade Science students used Photoshop to create an advertisement for healthy life choices. Students researched healthy and unhealthy choices that they might make, and then followed a model in making their own advertisement concerning the options researched. The lesson took three class periods to complete.

The Outsiders and Photoshop

The 8th Grade Language Arts class used Photoshop to create a collage that explained the personality traits of one of the characters from the novel. The students took three class periods to complete the task.

Dar and iMovie

The 6th grade Language Arts students used iMovie to create a video. The video was based on a storyboard that they created which summarized the main events of the story. Some of the students used Photoshop to create a title slide which showed some of the flora and fauna that existed in the time of Dar. This project took five class periods to finish.

Guatemala and Photoshop

After the 6th grade National Spanish students read a story that took place in Panajachel, Guatemala, they used Photoshop to create a poster that described the people, places and products of Guatemala. The students used a variety of selection tools to add content to the main document. This lesson took two classes to complete.

The Scientific Method and Photoshop

Some of the 6th Grade Science students used Photoshop to create a poster which detailed some of the steps in the Scientific Method. Students used different layers, gradients and several of the selection tools. The students took three days to finish this assignment.

Community Service Web Page and Dreamweaver

A group of middle school students is using Photoshop, Word, iMovie and Dreamweaver to record and publish the progress made by different house groups with their community service projects. This project will take six class periods to complete.

European Trade and Photoshop

The 8th grade Social Studies students worked in pairs to create two maps in Photoshop. One map charted the 15th century World as the Europeans knew it at the time, and the other map showed the principal trade routes of the Mediterranean Sea. The students had to delineate, color in and label various territories and bodies of water. They also varied the opacity to obtain different effects and they had to calibrate the brush tool to trace out the different trade routes. On the third day of this lesson, the students responded to a set of questions which asked them to make interpretations about information they had on their maps.

The Pearl, Indesign and Photoshop

The 8th grade Language Arts students used Indesign to create a storyboard for a chapter of the novel, The Pearl. The objective was to focus on making a succinct summary of the main points of the chapter. Once the students finished drafting their summaries, they created a six page Indesign document, where they added the text and graphics to complete the storyboard. Some students were able to use Photoshop to edit the graphics they used from the teacher-created graphics library. They learned that once they finished editing the graphic file, it was automatically updated in the Indesign document. This lesson took three class periods to finish.



The screenshot below shows the scorpion after the liquify filter was applied in Photoshop.

Poetry and Photoshop

Some of the 6th grade Language Arts students made a Photoshop poster of a poem that they wrote in class. They added a background, text, graphics and various special effects to create the document. This lesson took one class period to complete.

Bad Advertisements and Photoshop

After spending two classes surveying the different publicity techniques used to influence consumers, the 7th grade students spent two more class periods to create their own ad. They made their advertisement by employing irony to communicate some of the consequences involved in using tobacco or alcohol. Students added layer masks, text and a background layer to create their ad, which they later exported as a jpeg or gif file.

Hinduism, Buddhism and Photshop CS3

Some 6th grade Social Studies students used Photoshop to create a poster that compared the beliefs of these two religions. The students used special effects on the background and the graphics layers. They also created text layers for the title and the information about Hinduism and Buddhism.

Ancient Indian History and Photoshop CS3

Some of the 6th grade Social Studies students used Photoshop to create a poster which displayed information about four different topics in ancient Indian history. The students took two class periods to add graphics, text, a title and a background layer to complete the assignment.

The Iron Ring and Photoshop

Some of the 6th grade students used Photoshop CS3 to create a poster about Lloyd Alexander's novel, "The Iron Ring", for their Language Arts class. The students used a gradient with a texture for a background and varied the opacity of one level to create the effect of the floating ring. This lesson took approximately one and a half class periods to complete.

Medieval Fair with Google Docs, Photoshop and Sketchup

The 7th Grade Social Studies students began this project by spending two days in the lab doing research. Team leaders from each group received guidelines from their teachers by accessing the teachers' shared folders. From there, the team leaders used Google Docs to share the documents with their team members and then proceeded to complete the research.



Once they finished, students used Photoshop or Sketchup to create graphics that would serve two purposes: decorate their booth, and explain to visitors how their medieval group lived during that time. This part of the project took three days.

Bullying Projects

For the first two weeks of November (during the 6th grade trips) the 6th grade students who were not in Lagunillas worked on a seven day project that addressed the issue of bullying. During the first two days of the project, they did collaborative research in Google Docs, gathering information from teacher-approved web sites. Once they had information that addressed their research question, the students had three different choices for presenting their solutions: a poster made in Photoshop, a slideshow presentation made in Google Docs, or a podcast made in Garageband.

One of the research templates that students worked on collaboratively when preparing for their presentations.

One of the Bullying posters made in Photoshop.


This is a slide from a presentation prepared collaboratively by one of the student groups in Google Docs, and then downloaded as a ppt document.

A sample podcast about bullying made in Garageband.

Greek Gods and Goddesses

The 7th Grade Spanish classes used Photoshop Elements to create a poster of one Greek god or goddess. They included information about the deity's physical description, supernatural powers and a brief summary of one myth in which he or she played a role. As for tech skills, the students became more familiar with layers, feathering images and formatting text.

Zorbas and Photoshop

The 6th Grade Spanish students used Photoshop Elements to create a poster which described one of the characters in a story they read in class. First they created a background with the gradient tool. Then they made a border by adjusting the settings for the brush tool. Next they added an appropriate picture for the character they were describing. Finally they made two text layers: one for the title of their document and a second for the description. Once the students finished, they used the save for web command which compressed the document so it was easier to send it over the network to their teacher's drop box.