Activities with Google Drawings
Janet Corder and Joan Gore
Tony Vincent - Learning in Hand
Tony Vincent from Learning in Hand frequently shares tutorials and ideas for using Google Drawings.
Tony also offers an online course, Classy Graphics, where he teaches how to use Google's drawing tools to make graphic organizers, custom sticky notes, social media graphics, flyers, and interactive activities. Follow #ClassyGraphics on Twitter to find out more!
Shapegrams - Tony created Shapegrams to introduce his students to the drawing tools in Google Drawings. He offers 4 of the Shapegrams for free. The tutorials on these 4 Shapegrams are excellent. For $35 per year, you can subscribe to Tony's Shappegrams site, which gives you access to all of the Shapegrams and a license to distribute them to students. Follow #Shapegrams on Twitter for more ideas and student examples!
Google Drawings
Google Drawing is a part of Google that you might not use often, but once you start experimenting with it, the classroom possibilities are endless! Google Drawings gives you and your students the ability to manipulate, add images and text, shapes and more.
The teacher can create and share fill in the blank activities (templates).
The teacher can create and share drag-and-drop activities (templates).
Students can create drawings from scratch (a blank canvas).
FANTASTIC News
You can now open a new Google Drawing by typing drawing.new or drawings.new in the Chrome omnibar (address bar).
Eric Curts - Control Alt Achieve
Eric Curts (
Control Alt Achieve) has several Google Drawings tutorials and examples on his blog.
These are just a few of Eric's Google Drawings Resources. Click here for everything!
Matt Miller - Ditch That Textbook
Matt Miller, the author of Ditch That Textbook, has created tons of activities using Google Drawings. Follow Matt for more great resources!
Tutorials, Templates, Blogs and More
Fill in the Blank/Typing Information Examples
Choice Boards
Choice Boards are the ultimate tool for differentiating learning in the classroom! Students are given a variety of activities to choose from in order to demonstrate understanding of a topic or unit of study. Choice Boards can easily be created in Google Drawings.
Examples:
Family Choice Board by Susan Stewart (@TechCoachSusan)
Chemical Reactions (File, Make a Copy) by Ashley Jackson (@techcoachashley)
Create a Google Drawing
Open Google Drive
Click File
Click New
Click More
Use the dropdown menu to select Google Drawings
Start from Scratch
Google Drawings has so many classroom applications and this is one idea that can be used in any subject area and grade level.
The following directions are for creating a picture of yourself with 3 different callouts containing a fact about yourself.
- Create a New Google Drawing
- Go to Insert → Image and find the picture you want to use.
- Select Insert → Shape → Callouts.
- Choose one of the callouts.
- Drag the callout to desired location and type in your first fact.
- Drag the yellow dot (located at the tip of the point) to move the point of the callout.
- While the callout is selected, click on the Fill tool and change the color.
- Create 2 more callouts for the other facts.
- You can change the alignment, font, font size and color, etc. of the text, if desired.
- Click Insert →Text Box to add your name to your picture. Drag your text box to the desired location. Change the font and the font size and color so that it is clearly visible.
- Go to File and select Download As → JPEG.
Example:
3 Branches of Government
Point of View
Ideas:
Describe yourself at the beginning of the year.
What was Washington thinking when he crossed the Delaware?
How would you describe a parallelogram?
What are five important facts about an animal cell?
Change the Layout of Your Google Drawing
File
Page Setup
Select one of the options or Custom
If you choose Custom, you will probably use Inches or Pixels
Resize the Canvas
Resize the canvas by dragging the bottom right corner.
Tips and Tricks
- Insert a Google Drawing into a Google Doc: Select Drawing from the Insert menu in a Doc. Choose New or From Drive.
- Ctrl D (PC) Command D (Mac) duplicates an object
- Shapes: yellow diamonds allow you to alter the shape, blue boxes are used to adjust the shape and the blue circle is used to rotate the shape.
- To change the background from the dotted grid to any color right-click, select Background and choose your color.
- To change the order of the objects on your canvas, right-click on the object and select Order.
- To align objects on your canvas, select the objects you want to align, right-click and choose Align Horizontally or Align Vertically.
- To select multiple objects, drag across them with your cursor or use Shift and click or Control and click.
- When sharing activities (templates) with others, make them View Only,
- Replace Edit with Copy in the URL of the shared template to force the user to Make a Copy.
- Text can be added inside of a shape without having to create a text box.
- After you have completed a Google Drawing, go to File and select Download to access saving options.
- Use the File menu to download your Drawing as a PNG because it will maintain transparency. Tip: PNG files (not JPEG) maintain transparency if you have that.
Images
Most of the time you will want to use PNG images. These images do not have a background. When searching Google Images or any other site for images, add PNG to your search and it should filter out all of the pictures that have backgrounds.
Where can you get images? Pixabay - free images that do not require a citation
Pexels - free images that do not require a citation
Unsplash - free images that do not require a citation
FavPNG - transparent PNG images; 2 downloads per day for free account, unlimited downloads on premium account
Noun Project - icons; free and paid accounts; click here for educator pricing; must cite sources on free account
Connect with Janet and Joan
