I personally believe that Google Drawings is often overlooked as a tool that is beneficial in student learning. However, Google Drawings is an extremely versatile tool that not only allows students to show understanding, it also allows students to do so in a creative manner.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with Google Drawings, it is a digital drawing tool. This tool can be accessed through the waffle icon on your Google homepage, through your Google Drive by clicking +Create, then selecting Google Drawings from the drop down menu. Within drawings students are able to add lines, shapes, images, etc. to create something new. Below I will be sharing four different ways in which Google Drawings can help to promote creativity, learning and engagement inside of your classroom.

Mind Maps

Using a mind map students are able to make connections between old learning and new learning. These connections help strengthen the new learning that is taking place, and make it more retrievable for students, as they have prior knowledge that it has been linked to. Using a digital mind map also allows students the opportunity to pull in images. This will then provide two connections in which students can refer back to when thinking about new information that is being provided. Also, because Google is built around the idea of collaboration and sharing, students can easily share ideas with others, or collaborate to create a mind map together increasing the amount of connections that can be made.

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers can be a great way to help students organize their thoughts, and the information that is coming in. Often times if we are providing our brains with too much information at one time, without giving it a place to go, or a purpose, we tend to forget it. Using a graphic organizer helps our brains organize all of the incoming information in a clear and concise manner that is easy to refer to. Students can easily create their own graphic organizers using Google Drawings that best fit the organization of materials they are receiving. Or you may choose to use Google Drawings to create a graphic organizer that you will then share with students. Either way, graphic organizers are a great tool to help us provide structure to new information.

Memes

Memes can be a fun way to express commentary on an event that is shared through social media. For many of us we are familiar with memes as an image with large text placed in front that is designed to produce a laugh from its receiver. While memes can be fun during our time scrolling social media, they can also help to enforce student learning. When we ask students to create a meme based on their learning, we are truly asking them to synthesis their learning into one statement. That statement must then be supported through a visual representation. These two tasks are higher level thinking opportunities and help to provide students with the opportunity to strengthen their learning. Looking to add some extra engagement to lessons? Allow students to share their memes with classmates. It is sure to get some laughs and will also provide additional connections for students to refer back to when thinking about content within the classroom.

Memes can be created directly in Google Drawings. Ask students to choose a topic of study from your class, or you may consider assigning a topic. From there students must come up with one statement that is expected to provide humor to the reader along with an image that directly supports that statement. The image can be inserted into Google Drawings through the insert > image > search the web feature. Statements can be added through the text box feature within Google Drawings.

Digital Manipulatives

Many of the math concepts that are included in our curriculum are considered abstract. Without a strong basic understanding of our number system and how our numbers work together, students can easily get confused and frustrated. Math manipulatives help to provide support for those foundational skills. They provide a concrete tangible tool that students can use to physically manipulate objects to represent their thinking.

While manipulatives are an amazing tool it may be hard to understand student thought process with manipulatives if they are not used directly in front of us. Using Google drawings to create virtual manipulatives can provide students a platform to manipulate objects as well as share their thinking with us in a digital format. Using digital manipulatives created in Google Drawings students can use Screencastify to screen record their thought process and share it directly with the teacher. This provides an in depth look into students' thinking and understanding, even if we are not physically with the students. This also provides students a resource that may not be otherwise accessible to them outside of the classroom, as this is a tool they can access anywhere there is an internet connection.

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