Pictures are a great way to engage your students. A vibrant image is sure to grab your students' attention and activate them. With LessonUp, you can do something even more fun: add a moving GIF as an image. An image that looks like a short video.

But how do you create a LessonUp lesson with a moving GIF? There are millions of them on the Internet, on the most diverse sites, such as http://giphy.com/search/animated-gif.

They are fun, but not always useful for a lesson. Therefore, if you want to create your own GIF, hereunder we explain how you can do that:

Go to a site where you cannot only watch beautiful and useful videos, but also download them. In this example we use the site: www.videvo.net. This is a well-organised website with all kinds of short (stock) videos. To be able to use videos from this site, you must register. This can be done via channel such as Facebook & Google.

We search for a subject in English. Videvo now shows all videos listed per subject. In this case, we chose "London". Please note that the top row showcases sponsored videos that are not free of charge. The free videos can be recognised by the following text: By: Videvo (or another name).

Once you have found a suitable video, you can download it by clicking on the Free Download button. The video is now on your computer.

OK, the video has been downloaded, but it is not yet suitable to use as an image in LessonUp. Let's work on that.

Go to the website http://ezgif.com, and select the option: Video to GIF. Select the video file you downloaded and click on "Upload". Please note that the maximum file size is 100 MB!

By default, a GIF of the first 5 seconds is created, but you can extend this to a maximum of 60 seconds. The start and end point of the video can be chosen manually. It is important to know that the length of the video influences the quality of the GIF. This has to do with the next step.

You can set the quality of the GIF. The higher the frame rate (frames per second), the better the quality. Unfortunately, there is a maximum length of 10 seconds. This is a personal choice that also depends on the purpose for which the video is used. We opt for maximum quality and set the frame rate to 25.

Click on Convert to GIF and the moving GIF is created. This can take a while, but never longer than a minute. The preview will then appear.

Then click on Save to download the video. The GIF is now on your computer and ready to be uploaded in LessonUp!

In order to prevent the image from becoming too large, which can be annoying with a 'bad' internet connection, it is advisable to choose 'optimise the GIF'. With this, the quality remains almost the same, but the file size is reduced by about 40%!

In LessonUp, the GIF can be uploaded, just like an image, within a slide or as part of an interactive component such as a mind map, quiz or open-ended question.

The site EZGIF.com offers even more options to make the GIF just the way you want it. You can crop, rotate it, or indicate how often the GIF must repeat. There is not enough room to describe all the options here, but all the possibilities are listed in the website.

So good luck! We are very curious to see your lessons with moving GIFs!