GAIN - Drawing

For anyone who knows me, they know that I am a Disney nerd. Not just, "Hey. Frozen was pretty good, and I loved Belle as a kid." But the kind of Disney nerd that took the "Impossible Disney quiz" on Facebook that everyone was complaining about only getting 9 out of the 20 correct and only missed one. It is kind of a problem, but I am working on it...I think. So when I pulled up today's lesson on Google Draw and watched through the videos my professor posted, the one that stuck out to me was "How to Draw Goofy" So as I pondered what I should draw to gain practice with Google Draw, I decided on what I thought would be an easier alternative to the Goofy drawing, and make the iconic Mickey Mouse.

You can see my image above. I was right about it being easy until I got to the mouth. After 30 minutes of trying to align his mouth just so, I finally remembered that God didn't grant me with the ability to draw faces, so the fact I made it this far, I should be pretty proud. My main problem with the mouth was that I had a hard time getting used to the Scribble tool, which is similar to the plain "pencil tool" that can be found in the art program that comes on all computers.

What I thought was the most fun about this, was using shapes to make this picture. Everything in this picture is made up of layered shapes (Aside from my unimpressive mouth), much like how the illustrator in the Goofy video made their image. As I used this I saw so many ideas of how this could be used to teach math and geometry to kids. Younger kids can use this to learn shapes while the older kids can build something, much like my Mickey. The grid format that appears behind the picture during editing was incredibly helpful and when aligning the shapes, red lines to guide showed up to make sure I was aligning things correctly.

When watching the videos I found it very interesting that I could have chatted with someone online about my picture and we could have worked together, which I probably needed, but that is besides the point. I see this being a useful tool in the classroom and for doing homework as groups. In today's world children are coming home to an empty house due to parents working. If they needed to finish a group project and aren't old enough to drive, this would help them work together, and also finish their homework on time without having to worry about how they are going to get to their friend's house.

My textbook for this course gives different examples of how Google Drawings can be used in the class while meeting Common Core Standards. One way that I hadn't thought of while creating my misshapen Mickey was that students can make graphic organizers and other charts for class. It also talks about using this program for math, and how this exposes the children to great math vocabulary like "horizontal" and "vertical." When shapes are turned, the degrees are listed, which adds to what the children are exposed to and can work with to practice their skills they are learning in the classroom.

Overall, Google Drawing is the one program that I have found so far that I am most excited about using in my classroom, especially if I end up teaching math. I can already envision so many lesson plans that will not only be on the computer, which is what kids are most interested in these days, but will capture their attention and will be hands on so they are learning and having fun while doing their homework.