Google Drawings is a powerful design tool for students of all ages and levels. This post will demonstrate how K-12 teachers can leverage Google Drawings for just about any task or activity.
Not sure how Google Drawings could benefit your students/classroom? Read on for some great ideas!
Start Simple
The first strategy involves a little more work for the teacher to enable our younger students to design in Drawings.
Google Drawings is fairly complex, but if the teacher creates a skeleton template with shapes and images, students can manipulate the items as desired (great for word practice and number activities!).
Build on It
As students become more familiar with Drawings, the creation side opens many more doors and implications.
Teachers are often tempted to think that students need to be taught how to use a tool such as this. Do not fall into that trap! Given time and freedom to explore and share with each other, they will accomplish far more than we could hope to teach directly.
One great strategy is to do a brief walkthrough with students, then give them time to explore while you (the teacher) are doing exactly the same thing on the screen. Then students can watch what you are learning as well!
Reach Above and Beyond
Some things to consider to extend this tool to even greater heights include connections to other tools and unconventional uses.
1. Give students the option of utilizing a tool like this to create presentations of ideas, etc.
2. Apply what students have learned in Drawings to Google Slides (why? because the tools and features in Drawings are identical to those in Slides!).
3. Use Drawings/Slides to provide opportunity for students to create things together! (even in real time, on Slides)
Like these ideas? To learn classroom engagement strategies that make the most immediate impact, we recommend checking out our program, "Fostering Engagement Online Course."
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