Computer-Assisted Design and Its Features for SS 3

Class: SS 3
Term: First Term
Week: 12
Age: 17 years
Duration: 60 minutes
Subject: Visual Art
Curriculum Theme: Computer-Assisted Design
Previous Lesson: Block Lettering and Calligraphy
Topic: Computer-Assisted Design and Its Features
Subject Matter: task bar: menu bar; Tools bar: page view; Clip Art for illustration; Texts: Dialogue boxes, pop-up menu, and interactive fill tools; Layout features

Specific Objectives

By the end of the lesson, pupils/students should be able to:

Cognitive Domain

• Identify the task bar, menu bar, and tools bar in CorelDraw.
• Explain the function of page view in CorelDraw.
• Describe the purpose of clip art for illustration.
• State the uses of dialogue boxes and pop-up menus for text manipulation.
• Outline the importance of interactive fill tools for texts.
• Identify key layout features in CorelDraw.

Affective Domain

• Appreciate the role of CAD software in modern visual art.
• Show interest in exploring various CorelDraw features for creative design.

Psychomotor Domain

• Demonstrate how to import clip art into a CorelDraw document.
• Utilize text tools, including dialogue boxes and pop-up menus, to modify text.
• Apply interactive fill tools to text objects.
• Adjust basic layout features within CorelDraw.

Social Domain

• Collaborate with peers to identify CorelDraw features during practical sessions.

Reference Materials

The following resources were used in planning this lesson:

• 2014 Senior Secondary Education Curriculum (SSEC)
• Relevant State Unified Scheme of Work
• A suitable Visual Art textbook for Senior Secondary School 3
• FCT ERC/NAPPS Scheme of work

Instructional Materials

The teacher will teach this lesson with the aid of:

• Computer set with CorelDraw software installed
• Projector
• Compact disk/flash drive containing sample clip art
• Whiteboard/Blackboard
• Markers/Chalk
• Drawing paper/Cardboard for design concepts

Rationale for the Lesson

This lesson is essential as it introduces students to the practical application of computer software in creating visual designs, a critical skill in contemporary art and design fields. Understanding CorelDraw’s environment and tools provides a foundation for digital illustration and graphic design. It equips students with the knowledge to produce professional-looking artworks and designs, preparing them for further studies or careers in visual communication.

Prerequisite/Previous Knowledge

Students should have basic computer literacy, including knowledge of operating a computer, using a mouse and keyboard, and familiarity with general software interfaces.

Lesson Content/Board Summary

Computer-Assisted Design (CAD) and Its Features

CorelDraw Environment

CorelDraw is a vector graphics editor developed and marketed by Corel Corporation. It is widely used for creating logos, posters, flyers, brochures, and other graphic designs. Understanding its environment is crucial for effective use.

The CorelDraw environment typically includes:

1. Task Bar: This is usually found at the bottom of the Windows operating system screen. While not strictly part of the CorelDraw application itself, it allows users to switch between open applications, including CorelDraw, and access system functions.
2. Menu Bar: Located at the top of the CorelDraw window, below the title bar. It contains various menus that provide access to commands and options for managing files, editing objects, viewing the workspace, arranging elements, applying effects, and more.

Common menus include:

1. File: For creating new documents, opening, saving, importing, exporting, and printing files.
2. Edit: For undoing/redoing actions, cutting, copying, pasting, duplicating, and selecting objects.
3. View: For controlling how the document is displayed, such as zoom levels, wireframe view, enhanced view, and showing/hiding rulers, grids, and guidelines.
4. Layout: For managing page settings, inserting pages, duplicating pages, and setting page orientation.
5. Arrange: For ordering objects, grouping/ungrouping, combining, converting to curves, and aligning objects.
6. Effects: For applying various artistic effects like blend, contour, distort, envelope, extrude, and lens.
7. Bitmaps: For editing and converting bitmap images within CorelDraw.
8. Text: For formatting text, inserting special characters, and converting text to curves.
9. Table: For creating and editing tables.
10. Tools: For customizing options, accessing scripts, and managing colour management.
11. Window: For arranging open windows, showing/hiding dockers, and accessing colour palettes.
12. Help: For accessing CorelDraw’s help documentation and tutorials.

3. Tools Bar (Toolbox): Typically located on the left side of the CorelDraw window. It contains a collection of tools used for creating, editing, and manipulating objects in the drawing window.

Some common tools found in the toolbox include:

1. Pick Tool: Used for selecting, positioning, and transforming objects.
2. Shape Tool: Used for editing nodes of objects and manipulating object shapes.
3. Crop Tool: Used for removing unwanted areas of an image or object.
4. Zoom Tool: Used for magnifying or reducing the view of the drawing.
5. Freehand Tool: Used for drawing freehand lines and curves.
6. Artistic Media Tool: Used for drawing with various brush, sprayer, calligraphic, and pressure effects.
7. Rectangle Tool: Used for drawing squares and rectangles.
8. Ellipse Tool: Used for drawing circles and ellipses.
9. Polygon Tool: Used for drawing polygons and stars.
10. Text Tool: Used for creating and editing artistic and paragraph text.
11. Parallel Dimension Tool: Used for drawing dimension lines.
12. Connector Tool: Used for drawing lines that connect objects.
13. Interactive Blend Tool: Used for blending two objects.
14. Eyedropper Tool: Used for sampling colours from objects.
15. Outline Tool: Used for setting outline properties (colour, width, style).
16. Fill Tool: Used for applying uniform, fountain, pattern, texture, PostScript, or mesh fills to objects.

4. Page View (Drawing Page): This is the central workspace where you create your designs. It represents the printable area of your document. Objects placed outside this area may not be printed.

Clip Art for Illustration

Clip art refers to pre-made images or illustrations that can be easily inserted into a document to enhance its visual appeal. They are often vector-based, meaning they can be scaled without loss of quality.

Uses of Clip Art:

1. Adding visual interest to designs.
2. Illustrating concepts or ideas quickly.
3. Saving time compared to creating illustrations from scratch.
4. Enhancing presentations, brochures, flyers, and web graphics.

Importing Clip Art:

1. Go to the “File” menu and select “Import” (or use the shortcut Ctrl+I).
2. Browse to the location where your clip art files are stored (e.g., flash drive, CD, computer folder).
3. Select the desired clip art file and click “Import.”
4. Click and drag on the drawing page to place the clip art at the desired size.

Texts in CorelDraw

CorelDraw offers powerful tools for creating and manipulating text, allowing designers to incorporate typography effectively into their designs.

Text Manipulation Features:

1. Dialogue Boxes: These are pop-up windows that appear when you select certain text-related commands (e.g., Text Properties, Edit Text). They provide detailed options for formatting text, such as changing font, size, colour, alignment, spacing, and applying effects.
2. Pop-up Menu (Context Menu): This menu appears when you right-click on a text object. It provides quick access to commonly used text commands and options relevant to the selected text, such as “Edit Text,” “Convert to Curves,” “Order,” and “Properties.”
3. Interactive Fill Tools: These tools allow you to apply various types of fills to text objects, making them visually dynamic.

Examples of interactive fill tools for text:

1. Interactive Fountain Fill Tool: Applies gradient fills (linear, radial, conical, square) to text, blending colours smoothly.
2. Interactive Pattern Fill Tool: Fills text with vector or bitmap patterns.
3. Interactive Texture Fill Tool: Applies procedural textures to text, simulating natural surfaces.
4. Interactive Mesh Fill Tool: Allows for complex, multi-point colour blending within text objects, creating realistic shading and highlights.

Layout Features

Layout features in CorelDraw help in organizing the design space and preparing the document for output (print or web).

Key layout features include:

1. Page Size: Setting the dimensions of the drawing page (e.g., A4, Letter, custom size). This is crucial for print output.
2. Page Orientation: Choosing between portrait (vertical) or landscape (horizontal) orientation for the page.
3. Units: Defining the measurement units for rulers, dimensions, and object properties (e.g., millimeters, inches, pixels).
4. Rulers: Horizontal and vertical guides displayed along the edges of the drawing window, used for precise positioning and measurement.
5. Guidelines: Non-printable lines that can be dragged from the rulers to help align objects accurately.
6. Grid: A series of intersecting lines that can be displayed on the drawing page to aid in aligning objects and maintaining consistent spacing.
7. Document Setup: Accessing comprehensive options for managing document properties, including page background, default object properties, and saving settings.

Teaching Methods/Instructional Techniques

Discussion, Demonstration, Guided Practice, Question and Answer, Explanation, Practical Activity

Instructional Procedures

Step 1: Introduction

Time: 5 minutes

Teaching Skill: Activating Prior Knowledge

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher greets the students and asks them about their previous knowledge of computer applications and any design software they might have encountered. The teacher then introduces CorelDraw as a powerful tool for visual art and design.

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils respond to questions about computer applications and listen attentively to the introduction of CorelDraw.

Learning Point: Introduction to CorelDraw

Step 2: CorelDraw Environment (Task Bar and Menu Bar)

Time: 7 minutes

Teaching Skill: Explanation/Demonstration

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher projects the CorelDraw interface and points out the task bar and menu bar. The teacher explains the function of the task bar and then details the main menus within the menu bar, giving examples of commands found in each (e.g., File > New, Edit > Undo, View > Zoom).

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils observe the projected interface, listen to the explanations, and identify the task bar and menu bar.

Learning Point: Task and menu bar functions

Step 3: CorelDraw Environment (Tools Bar and Page View)

Time: 7 minutes

Teaching Skill: Demonstration/Guided Identification

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher continues the demonstration by highlighting the tools bar (toolbox) and explaining its purpose. The teacher points out several common tools (e.g., Pick Tool, Text Tool, Rectangle Tool) and briefly explains their basic functions. The teacher then explains the concept of the drawing page (page view).

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils identify the tools bar and page view, noting the examples of tools explained by the teacher.

Learning Point: Tools bar and page view

Step 4: Clip Art for Illustration

Time: 7 minutes

Teaching Skill: Practical Demonstration

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher defines clip art and explains its uses in design. The teacher then demonstrates step-by-step how to import a sample clip art image from a flash drive into CorelDraw, resizing and positioning it on the page.

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils observe the demonstration of importing clip art and ask questions for clarification.

Learning Point: Clip art importation process

Step 5: Texts (Dialogue Boxes and Pop-up Menu)

Time: 7 minutes

Teaching Skill: Explanation/Guided Practice

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher explains how to create text using the Text Tool. The teacher then demonstrates how dialogue boxes (e.g., for text properties) and the right-click pop-up menu are used to format and manipulate text objects, showing options like changing font, size, and alignment.

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils follow along, creating simple text and experimenting with dialogue boxes and the pop-up menu under teacher guidance.

Learning Point: Text manipulation tools

Step 6: Interactive Fill Tools and Layout Features

Time: 7 minutes

Teaching Skill: Demonstration/Application

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher demonstrates how to apply interactive fill tools (e.g., fountain fill) to text objects to create visual effects. Afterwards, the teacher explains and demonstrates essential layout features such as changing page size, orientation, and setting units, rulers, and guidelines.

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils observe the application of interactive fills to text and the demonstration of layout features, noting their importance.

Learning Point: Interactive fills and layout settings

Step 7: Evaluation/Review

Time: 5 minutes

Teaching Skill: Questioning/Assessment

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher evaluates the learning by asking the following questions:

1. Mention two features of the CorelDraw environment.
2. How do you import clip art into CorelDraw?
3. Name two ways to format text in CorelDraw.
4. What is the purpose of page orientation in CorelDraw?

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils answer orally and in writing.

Learning Point: CorelDraw features understanding

Step 8: Note-Taking

Time: 10 minutes

Teaching Skill: Guided Writing

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher guides pupils/students to copy the essential Board Summary notes on CorelDraw environment, clip art, text tools, and layout features into their notebooks.

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils/students copy the notes carefully into their notebooks.

Learning Point: CorelDraw features recording

Step 9: Conclusion

Time: 5 minutes

Teaching Skill: Consolidation

Teacher’s Activity: The teacher briefly recaps the main points of the lesson, emphasizing the importance of understanding the CorelDraw environment for effective digital design. The teacher encourages students to practice using the software.

Pupils’ Activity: Pupils listen to the summary and prepare for the next lesson.

Learning Point: Lesson summary and reinforcement

Continuous Assessment/Further Study

Type: Homework/Practice Exercise

Instruction: Using a computer with CorelDraw installed, perform the following tasks:

1. Open CorelDraw and identify the menu bar, tools bar, and drawing page.
2. Create a new document and set its page size to A5 and orientation to landscape.
3. Type your name using the Text Tool and apply a fountain fill to it.
4. Import any clip art image from your computer into the document.
5. Save your work as “MyFirstCorelDrawDesign.cdr”.

Lesson Keywords

• CorelDraw – A vector graphics editor used for creating designs.
• Task Bar – System bar for switching applications.
• Menu Bar – Top bar with command menus (File, Edit, View, etc.).
• Tools Bar (Toolbox) – Side bar with tools for creating and editing objects.
• Page View – The printable drawing area in CorelDraw.
• Clip Art – Pre-made images for illustration.
• Dialogue Box – A pop-up window for detailed options.
• Pop-up Menu – Context-sensitive menu appearing on right-click.
• Interactive Fill Tools – Tools for applying dynamic fills (e.g., gradients, patterns) to objects.
• Layout Features – Settings for page organization (size, orientation, rulers, guidelines).

Differentiation

Support: For students struggling with computer navigation or CorelDraw interface, provide one-on-one guidance during practical sessions and simplified step-by-step instructions. Pair them with more proficient students for peer support. Focus on identifying only the most basic tools and functions.

Extension: Encourage advanced students to explore additional features of the tools bar, experiment with different types of interactive fills (e.g., mesh fill), and try combining multiple clip art images with text to create a simple poster design.

Suggested Lesson Videos

CorelDraw interface tutorial SS3 Visual Art