Thing 24- Google Drawings

Thing 24 – Google Drawings.

My only past experience with this program was to try to use it in google docs to add word art or picture but I wasn’t very impressed. I decided to explore the features it offers in the cool tools and I was very pleasantly surprised.

Three things that I explored was using Google drawings to:

1-          Make an interactive image, the author calls it a Googlink – similar to Thinglink- (this is the program that RCSD supports but I was afraid that they would not continue in the future.) You start the Google drawing with a background on the topic, I used the Rainforest as an example, (see below) and then add links to images websites and videos. It is pretty easy to learn and utilizes Google functions to search right in the program.

 It gives students the opportunity to do the research and then create a great visual representation.

     2- Is a neat little trick to make post it notes with writing on them.  I did two types – one for fun lunch slips and one for interlibrary loan. Follow the link below for full directions (make sure you use the super sticky post it notes or you could have jams.)

https://learninginhand.com/blog/print-custom-sticky-notes-with-google-slides

see example below of my template

You use the template provided with the program and modify it to what you want.

3-      The last thing I found that was very handy was magnetic poetry with Google slides.

https://www.controlaltachieve.com/2016/12/wintertime-magnetic-poetry.html

This link is to a website that has a tutorial about how to use a winter one.  You could modify this one – change the middle background to whatever topic you like, the words on the list are common to any topic and then you could add specific words to the right (you could ask the students to give you those words – I was thinking of doing one with senses in the winter – you could leave the winter words and add the “senses” words.

I found a lot to like about Google drawings proving once again the value of cool tools.