Blog 05: Drawing with Technology

I don’t know about you, but yikes. 1st 6 weeks is just about done (grades due the 24th), and I’ve never felt the burn out this early. I call my mom everyday on my commute home and she always asks me how my day was. Most of the time I answer with “UGH” because of just everything! Grades, assignments, parent contact, student contact, staring at Zoom call, it really starts to add all up. But I’m not going to lie, today felt like an actual good day. I got grades done, lessons uploaded, and I felt like my students really learned and were engaged today. I think our KVA students (Katy Virtual Academy, students all virtual) are sort of realizing, “oh crap okay I have to start doing stuff”, and they are! I had a couple students join our zoom call for the first time today (after reminding and contacting like a million times it feels like)!! And honestly, it was so exciting! And last week I had 100% of my KAP KVA students logged in on our zoom call, and some even turned on their cameras!!! Big deal alert!! Teaching to blank black screens is just tiring!!!

Something else that really gave me a lot of hope was my advisory class. I tell them every week how awesome they are because of the amount of participation we have in all of our Character Strong work. And last week, one of my students wrote in our chat on Zoom that it was their favorite class, even as a virtual advisory class! There is light at the end of this dark, what seems like never ending tunnel. Even it’s just small steps, it seems like more students are engaged and working (because honestly, to my friends who are not teachers, it’s like pulling teeth trying to get students to turn in work).

Also something just exciting is I officially decided, I’m going to get my Phd! I’ll update everyone about the process, and all about it throughout my posts! But I’m really excited!

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Okay! Technology! Y’all, technology is honestly great. I’ve even been having to teach Ben things about Google while he’s been working from home, and getting more freelance work, it’s kind of hilarious!

I realized last time that I talked the awesome Master mode on Google Slides, but didn’t tell y’all the awesome ways you can share it! If your district is working with Google Sites check back and I’ll let you know, but since it’s all Google I imagine it’s pretty simple! If you use Canvas in your district you have a couple of options! What I usually do is share my link with my students, but make it a force copy! If you choose this option, to make it forace a copy you drop the link but change “edit” to “copy” in the url! So like if you click the following link, https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Q7fosnDE8kUMsmLiT3iGMHbxQJp5C1AtvMVKOSYUWxk/copy?usp=sharing , this will force a copy of a fun message from me into your google drive (and it’s in Master Mode!)! Super simple, and easy to do! THis way students have it to refer to if they need to go back! So I’ll make hard copy notes this way for students to always have!

The other option is that you can click on the + button in the module, then click on the scary “External Tool” option, find Google Drive, and find your Master Mode creation! Then boom, it’s in the students Canvas page for them to work on! I did have trouble with this in the beginning of the year, which is why I switched to the link version. But I’ll keep working with it and figure it out and get back to y’all!

For today though I want to talk about Google Draw! In my grad school classes we used this when we were learning about different technologies in the classroom.

Google Draw is really fun, because you can actual have the students draw which is perfect for ELL students. Sometimes visuals are easier for students to understand so it’s awesome. In order for it to work you have to be working in Google Docs (you can technically do it in Google Slides because they can just use the shapes and scribble feature in lines, but I think it works best in Google Docs).

When you open up your google doc and have your idea/lesson created it’s super simple! Click on the “Insert” button at the top of the screen like below, and then click on “Drawing” and “+ New”!

Once you click on “+ New”, this new box will pop up where you can actually create the Drawing. You just simply use the shapes option, but what’s great about working in Google Docs with the drawings, is that you create the entire drawing in this box and it will all insert wherever your last text was! The “Scribble” feature in the Line option is also awesome, because you basically can freehand without Google always trying to correct it! The phrase I use the most in class is “Pobody’s nerfect”, thank you Jenna Fischer/The Office and Kristen Bell/The Good Place. The drawing is not going to be perfect like if you were free handing! Or maybe it will if you’re like me and can’t draw at all! One of the shape options is also a speech bubble so you can have people talking. Or they also just have the text box option so if students to label or explain their drawing they can!

So once the drawing is all complete it will look something like this! Once you click on “Save and Close”, Google will import your drawing into the document wherever your cursor was last blinking! Making it a little bit easier than if you were creating it in Google Slides! And remember, pobody’s nerfect so your drawing may not be perfect and that’s okay!

Not an artist y’all, that’s my dad. He’s the artist in the family I just like the paint by numbers and coloring books! So in the end, when you’ve made your drawing and are ready to insert just simply click on “Save and Close” and watch your drawing come to life! Okay not really, but watch it fit in with your lesson!

Google Draw is really great though, it allows students to show off their creative side, and really make their own connections to their learning. I know for me I’m a very visual learner, and kinesthetic too, and the images really help me! And honestly it’s kind of fun and therapeutic because you’re just making art!

Hopefully this will help you or your team create some fun lessons for students! Told y’all, Google is just awesome (sponsor me Google!!!)

- Bay :-)