Creative Uses for Google Slides and Drawings

1. Google Slides

One can quickly describe Slides as the Google version of Microsoft Powerpoint.  Create a slide show to deliver information, support a presentation, and collaborate through the process of creating that presentation.  That is rarely how I have used this in a class setting.

2. Google Drawing

A free space to add whatever you want to the space.  Oddly, I find it easier to insert and not as easy to draw in drawings.  Nevertheless, it is a nice functionality to have.

Slides and Drawings are both programs that have the same basic premise, free space for you to do what you want.  Set up a page and run with it.


There are still the research tools available in docs, but docs likes to format, Slides and Drawings are free format spaces.  Add what you want, move it where you want.

• Use an image as a background - Add an image and make it the size of the slide or drawing space.  Use the arrange option to send it back and format, image options to ,make it more transparent to use an image as a background or slide theme.

• Use hyperlinks to link multiple drawings or make create your own adventure stories.

• Citing images - click on an image, then click and drag the URL of the image to cite it quickly.

Through my training I have come across teachers who have found creative ways of using each of these tools.

• Using Google Drawings as a book report.  Students used the drawing tool to summarize books, provide relevant images and then presented from the single-slide drawing.

• Using Drawings for YOGA sequences - each student was individually responsible for creating a slide for a yoga pose.  Later, they worked with others to link together slides with four other members of the class to create a mini-yoga sequence to teach, present, and walk the class through.

• Pecha Kucha style presentations - presentations made with slides containing a picture or less than 3 words.  Follows a time and slide format I used 6 slides x 10 seconds.

• Newsletters and posters - due to the free flowing space, it is easy to create a newsletter or poster with either a single slide or a drawing, which is simply a single slide.

• Making a website out of a series of google drawings.  Publish a google drawing and it is a webpage.  Link that drawing to other google documents or webpages you make later and you have a series of webpages.  Pretty simple to do and allows students to create effective designs.  I have seen teachers use this for student portfolios if they do not wish to learn google sites and they want students to have an e-portfolio.

Chromebook 101 - Review

Even if, for no other reason, you have students get out their chromebooks just to have them on their desk, you are leaps and bounds ahead of a wasted computer. If you don't know how to implement them in class, dangling them in front of students will inspire them to find a reason to use them in class. Research, looking up definitions, presenting, who knows what excuse they will tell you.

Regardless of comfort with technology, most teachers start implementation of technology at the lower enhancement level of integration (Substitution rather than Redefinition).  This is the same for the tech-phobic and the tech-philic (my science background... sorry).  AND THAT'S FINE.

Sure your administration might ask you how chromebooks have transformed your class... We'll get there, Rome wasn't built in a day.  If you are at least getting the computers into the students hands and letting them explore then you are on the right track and are setting yourself up for excellence.  

Students may get distracted with computers on their desks.  Rather that punishing every distraction, focus the distraction and challenge students to do something that makes their presentation, paper, or project more personal... Something that they are more proud of and willing to share.

Is it a little scary to see what students come up with?  Yes.  Is there a chance that it will be bad?  Yes.  It is therefore a good thing that you set up expectations for use and have a progression of consequences.  Most of the time, in my experience, I have found that students surprise me more with excellence, over-achievement, and originality.  So much so that I ask them to either share with the class or teach me and others how to do what they did.

Technology proficiency is making its way into the standards, and if students are actively trying to learn standards, go with it.  Even if it seems like they are only interested in the computers, use that motivation to engage them in projects related to content.

Chromebook 101 - Transfer Some Control

If you have read my other Chromebook 101 posts, then you have read how I feel it is important to set up a discipline and expectation structure as well as become proficient in 1 thing (I suggest Google Docs).  My suggestions on creating expectations and knowing google docs are simply to make sure that there is a level of comfort with implementing chromebooks in the classroom.  Often, teachers are more apprehensive about starting to use them and once they begin to see how easy chromebooks are and how seamlessly they can be integrated into current curriculum, they tend to continue to use them and learn new things.

This post is equally important for those with fears of using technology with students as well as those who welcome the use of technology in the classroom.  For those who are familiar with the SAMR and TPACK models of technology integration, you know that there are varied levels of integration and varied ideas of best practice integration.  Click on the link to get to know the levels of SAMR.  The lowest levels of technology implementation use technology to enhance learning (substitution and augmentation) whereas the higher levels transform the classroom (modification and redefinition).

It is important to know that computers are hard to break with a misplaced button click.  That being said, let students press buttons, click new things, search and learn.  Give up the choke-hold on the computer.  As long as your expectations are laid out, you can always reel students in with by letting them know when they are not doing what they are supposed to do.  Here are some simple suggestions to get you used to a classroom that lends itself to transformation.

• Be a Guide.  Just because you know the answer does not mean you have to tell them.  Help students learn to find the answer.  This strategy works great for when you do not know the answer.

• Are you going to have students type your notes?  Try changing them to collaborative notes (where students work on notes as a group) or enhancement notes (where you give students your notes and while you are talking they reword or add to their own copy to make them more useful and personal).

• Give options.  Just because you would do something one way does not mean that they would.  Challenge students to be unique with how they word and display information.

• You do not have to know it all.  If you give students a project, let students know that you can help them in Google Docs, but they are welcome to use Slides, prezi, powtoons, wevideo, etc.  

• Show students how to find information.  I suggest Google search for technical support.  If you ever need to show them, I suggest "Let me Google That for You" (Google it).

Chromebooks 101 - Get to know 1 thing

I often hear teachers say that they are intimidated by technology because there are so many things to know.  Yes there are, but, by the same logic, there are so many people in the world so I should be a recluse.  Get to know one thing and try that out.  Trying one thing might peak your interest and get you into trying other things with the chromebooks or your students might ask to try something out that you can watch and learn.

My suggestion for the 1 thing is Google Docs.  Google Docs is a lot like Microsoft Word and Pages which are pretty universal.  So if you have a set of chromebooks, go ahead and play around with Google docs and check some things out.  If you want, play around with the doc that I have attached to this post.  Once you open it, make sure to click on File and then Make a Copy so you will be able to edit it.

Google Docs Training Document

As a trainer I like to get teachers working with Google docs right away.  Teachers play through the training document, ask questions that pertain to their content areas, and force me to cover things that I had planned to cover anyways.

Once I get them going on docs, they always start asking me about Google Slides, Google Classroom, and anything else that they can use in their classroom.  The teachers I have trained this way begin implementing Google docs as soon as possible.  They are both confident in what students can do and their content knowledge extends the applications of Google Docs in ways I would have never thought.  Attached is the document that I share with teachers new to Google drive and Google Docs.  Please feel free to make a copy and use it.  My only request, if you find a way to make it better, please let me know and share the document back with me.  I would appreciate it.

Google Docs Training Document

Chromebook 101 - Setting Up Expectations

Like any activity that teachers implement in class or any tool that teachers provide for students in class, teachers are required to think about what can go wrong and what will be the consequence for the actions.  Many districts, mine included have created an acceptable use policy, a list of do's and don'ts with electronic devices and access to the internet.  That being said, once the acceptable use policy was written and printed, it was out of date.

You are never going to know all the things that can go wrong or all of the possible ways in which students can misuse technology.  Thought must be given to how you, the teacher, set up your expectations for electronic use and your consequence structure.  Here are a couple of things that have worked for me with both iPad and 1-1 chromebook implementations in my high school science class.

Read through the district policy on student electronic device usage.

1. In some way shape or form, walk the students through the different things that are considered, by district standards to be wrong or inappropriate.
2. You could read through it, jigsaw the reading, have a note-taking activity, video activity, or presentation activity showing examples of offenses to the Acceptable Use Policy.

Email the policy home to parents.

1. It is not enough that students know the policy exists inside the classroom, let parents know what their kids will be held accountable to so they have the ability to support similar parameters for access to technology.

Avoid the consequence of taking away the chromebook.

1. For the chromebooks to be an effective, transformative tool in the classroom, students need to use them.  The chromebooks should not be a novelty, a movie Friday, or a reward, they should be similar to a pencil, paper, or school book.  Would you take that away from a student for a day, week, or semester?  Find a way to discipline students without taking away the device.
2. Come up with a progression of discipline.  In my class, there was a progression of consequence.  First, warning.  Second, warning and email/call home.  Third, warning, email/call home, and detention. Etc.

Parental contact early and often is important with technology implementations.

1. This is often though of a best practice, so nothing new, but the more contact you have with the parents and the more you remind them of the expectations and how their sons/daughters are meeting them the more supportive they will be of the consequences.

Its OK for students to have them out and not use them.

1. Personally, I had students get out chromebooks every day, even if I was not planning on using them.  Students would ask if they could do certain tasks on the chromebooks or ask to look things up on the internet.  Little by little, they became a larger part of the class.
2. Chromebooks do not take a lot of time to power on.  Have students get them at the beginning of the period and put them away at the end of the day.  This will help with transitions between activities.  Remember, a closed chromebook is logged out and they will power on very quickly.

Teaching Search Strategies

Google has so many projects that it is hard to keep track of them.  They have their BIG applications being search, drive, and gmail, but there are a huge number of apps that are lesser known.  Small projects that came from the 20% time model at google.

A Google a Day is a set of 3 questions every day.  Students search for the answer, while the app times them.  The wording of the questions increases the challenge of searching for the answer.  The google a day website is a quick and easy way to get students practice with searching on google.  I have used this as an opener in class and have required students to take screenshots of their successful searches to get credit.  It is a challenging and fun way to get students searching.

Every day you and your students can answer questions from three categories (pop culture, science, and sports).  The questions are hard, but there are enough clues to get the answer.  I have worried about typing in the question and getting the answer right away, but the webpage eliminates all posts during the day to get rid of all spoilers.  Just make sure they are searching within the tab with A Google A Day open.

Trouble with the NGSS

Today I was training the school technology leads in my district and toward the end of the time we had a chat about what kind of support they needed and what they felt were the needs of their teachers and their schools.  Near the end a teacher mentioned frustration he was having with the NGSS and I haven't been able to let it go.  This teacher wanted to know when science teachers would be getting more  concrete NGSS lessons.  He felt that he had been told what lessons were and were not supposed to look like and what components they were supposed to have, but that he wanted to be given some true NGSS lessons.

I think what troubled me about that conversation was the authenticity of the lessons he wanted.  Sure there are things cross cutting concepts, STEM concepts, science standards, and real life connections that need to be made with the common core and NGSS; but only incorporating those pieces is missing the point.  This teacher wanted a script of how to run the class, step-by-step methodology rather than best practice, pre-scripted examples rather than examples and ideas that organically flow out of conversations with students about the content.  That bugs me.

Is there such a focus on standards that we are missing the point that many of the standards open up the chance to talk about the connections that science has in the real world.  Even more importantly, it affords teachers the opportunity to inspire students to derive connections to their lives that we may not have seen.  It is hard for teachers to take more of a guide role and less of a teach role.  Guiding requires responding to what students say and their interests that day.  The role of the teachers is now to steer student interest and challenging students' preconceived ideas toward scientifically accepted theories and logical connections.  Yes, teachers can do this with a scripted lesson, but a scripted lesson loses the quality of being driven by student interest and engagement, rather it is driven by teacher agenda.  There is less of an organic flow to the learning and the conversation and topics are less authentic to the students.

That being said, there are excellent lessons out there that are amazing, but are they considered Common Core or NGSS lessons?  That all depends on the teacher.  The same lesson given in two different classes, by two different teachers may look very different as teachers know.  Are students organized in rows, listening, following directions, and completing work when told, or are they working in groups, working with the teacher to come to class-wide theories and shared understandings, rationalizing their theories with logic and content knowledge, and having thought provoking conversations with the ability to extend their learning and naturally differentiate instruction based on the interest they have in the subject.  Yes the latter is messy, pseudo-chaotic, and slightly more unpredictable.  I guess that is why we tend to focus more on what a NGSS lesson is and what it isn't, rather than some lessons that fit NGSS.