Drawing

My first reaction to google drawing was that the name was a misnomer. It was cool, yes, and it could be very useful for making flow charts and for communicating information visually, but it wasn't really drawing, and it wasn't creative. Then I saw how the basic shapes could be used to "draw" Goofy!

I learned that you can import images by uploading them specifically, typing in a url, or doing a google image search. Images can be similar to the stock images, or they can be actual photographs. Textboxes can be part of the drawing and/or a drawing can be embedded into a regular google document. After being embedded into a document both the original (saved) drawing and the new copy can be edited separately. I especially liked the drawing of the seating chart for a wedding, and thought the idea could easily be adapted to make drawings of molecules.

The examples from the lesson plan (for elementary students!) were much more complicated than I would have thought possible. It definitely allowed students to be really creative, and I loved the way the children's drawings incorporated real life images. This would be a really useful tool to get students who don't feel comfortable about their artistic ability to still be creative in a visual way. For those students who are artistic in a more traditional way, drawings gives them a new medium in which to express themselves.