Using Google Drawings App in the Classroom

The Google Drawing App is available for free on IPads. The app allows for drawing to be created. Similar to other Google Apps, drawing can be designed and collaborated with people anywhere and at anytime with internet. Drawings can be created then someone can change the size, color of inside the design or border, and can turned freely. Text can be easily added with different fonts, size, and color. Lines and arrows can be added with different thicknesses, styles, and color. The scribble tool also allows for freely designed drawings with different tools. The polygonal tool allows for freely designing shapes as well. Pictures can be uploaded from your library or found online. Any design can be copied and pasted, and there is a variety of background options. The finished drawing can be saved as a PDF and shared freely. There is also a chat box for drawing as a group. Overall I found the app to be easy to figure out, and with a simple user friendly design. I like how easy it was to overlay different designs on top of the same one page. I think the app could be great for my students when they create a brain web, need to draw something for a presentation, or need to use text and phots/drawings on the same page. The app could also be great tool to accompany lessons on colors, shapes, or graph designs. The app allows for students to also easily work on their drawing in groups at school or at their home.

I found the lesson plan to be great tool for students to be able to work on shapes and discover knowledge in their own ways. They would be told to do certain actions, but using this app electronically allows for students to explore shapes that writing on paper does not. They may be able to better link ideas like how shapes are defined by their number of sides and angles, not size or color. I like that students would be able to create a multitude of shapes and seems simple enough for nearly all students to preform instructions. I feel that using this lesson plan would illuminate true knowledge and understanding that perhaps could be hidden during other types of assessments. For example, if students are mixing up definitions of shapes it becomes clear by the clear lines of this app compared to drawing on paper. I do however wonder how the assessment process works. Would students just copy, type their name, and follow each instruction under that number instruction? Overall the lesson plan is a great use of time and could easily be adapted to struggling or advanced students.

Graham discusses several ways that Google Drawing can be used to meet Common Core State Standards. Drawings can be used to meet standards about distinguishing between defining attributes and no defining attributes of shapes by building and drawing shapes. It also can be used to recognize and draw shapes having specific attributes with a given number of angels or faces. Google Drawings can also be used to understand how shapes are in different categories, but may have attributes of sharing a larger overall category. Plus help students understand different types of quadrilaterals. The app also allows for students to assess standards about speaking and listening by presenting their ideas and doing their work depicted in their work. Google Drawings can also meet standards about be creative, collaborating with others, creating visual representations for presentations, and classifying 2D objects from a variety of characteristics.