My third grade students were so excited to learn to use Google Drawing. I found a great beginners tutorial on YouTube created by another teacher. We watched together and then jumped right in. Initially, they created a Drawing about themselves. I wanted them to concentrate on specific skills, inserting an image, word art, line, shape and text. Then I asked them to change font size, style and color. Spending time on these basics, with the focus being just about the technology not the content really helped their confidence level.
I had several conversations with the teachers and the students about how we could use Drawing to create a project that would support what they were studying in the classroom. One student actually showed me how they could insert shapes like the sun and clouds and that they were studying the water cycle and weather. Done. Thank you Armando, you’ve just come up with our next project.
The students and I share a library Gmail account. They created their drawings within that account and we shared them with their teacher. A lot of steps but they got it, they were so engaged and excited to “show off” their skills to their homeroom teacher. I also printed a hard copy to give to the teacher if she wanted to use them for a bulletin board in the classroom.
Issues we encountered were mainly in sharing the account. Due to so many attempts at logging in, twice Google had me change the password. This was confusing for the students and yet I think an important lesson. I had to remind them that when they are logging in, they really need to take their time and check their spelling. If we could reduce the number of incorrect log in attempts then the security might not be questioned.
All in all, the students felt very smart completing this project and learning about the Google Apps. We are moving on to Slides next!
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