How I am using Google Drawings in Class

In a previous post I mentioned the Ditch That Textbook professional development training I attended. The training was outstanding and I left with several great ideas that I have since tried implementing in the classroom.  One of the ideas I have tried to use in the last couple of weeks is to use Google Drawings with students.  

In geography this past week we began studying Ancient Rome.  As part of our study of Ancient Rome I had the students use Google Drawings to create an Ancient Rome Fact Sheet.  I provided the students with a link to a website that had many great facts about Ancient Rome.  The students were then to take the information from the website and create a fact sheet about Ancient Rome to share with the class.  The students were to use words, summaries, bullets, diagrams, maps, charts, graphs, drawings, and any other visual way to show what they learned about Ancient Rome.

The students enjoyed presenting what they learned about Ancient Rome in this way. In essence we were creating a poster, but using Google Drawings to do it. Some of the best posters saw students not only using pictures, but incorporating links, various colors and text boxes, and captions for their images.

In the future I plan to keep using Google Drawings as a way for students to visually share what they know and to create various projects.  There were many ideas great ideas shared during the Ditch That Textbook professional development, and using Google Drawings with students was one of the best.    

Biome Research Project

Last week in our science class we began our study of the six major biomes in the world.  In the past I have had students work with each other to study one of the biomes in a small group.  Each group would research different aspects of their biome and then the group would work together to create a poster to share what they learned about their biome.  This year since we are a 1:1 school with each student having their own Chromebook I wanted to try to take this assignment to the next level in terms of technology and collaboration.

Each group was still responsible for finding the same information for their project as in the past:

• The name of their biome
• A labeled map showing the location of their biome
• Any landforms in their biome
• A description of the climate in their biome
• At least ten animals that live in their biome
• At least ten plants that live in their biome

However, instead of having the groups create a poster using poster board I decided to have them create a Screencast of their group presenting a Google Presentation that they had created.  Each group decided how to divide up the work of doing the research and then they shared a Google Slide presentation and each student created their own slides within the presentation.  Once they were finished with the presentation they went to a quiet place in the school and recorded their screencast using the Screencastify extension.   Once the students turned in their screencasts I shared them with the rest of the class so we could view each group's screencast video.

The students really enjoyed this project and came up with some creative ways to share what they learned about their biome.  I could see us doing this again in the future with other projects.  I also plan to have students demonstrate their understanding of a topic, such as how to work a math problem, by creating a screencast and sharing it with me.