Today’s TCEA 20 for 2020 tech tip comes courtesy of Mason Echols, a 3rd grade teacher at FSH elementary, and Michelle Schiebel, our elementary computer applications teacher.
It is the opinion of the author that Google Drawings is one of the most under-rated and least used Google App. But thanks to the work of Eric Curts of Ctrl+Alt+Achieve, he’s putting Google Drawings back in the discussion of unique and creative tools to use with your students. One of the ways he suggests is to create memes.
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For those of you who are unfamiliar, a meme is an internet phenomenon where text is applied to a picture related to specific scene within a TV show, movie, news, or other pop culture in order to represent a feeling, idea, or to create a response that captures the essence of the scene. In other words, it is the language of the internet and our children.
As a classroom teacher, I allowed (and used) memes to be another form of literacy, but I never thought to have students design in Google Drawings. Using picture and text templates (there is even a specific meme font (Impact)) is a hallmark of meme making and Google Drawings is a wonderful tool for creating and using templates with students. Check out Eric Curts’ entire blog post on creating memes. Even ISTE has a blog post on it, too!
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Meme making is just one creative and fun way to use Google Drawings, but did you know that Google Drawing can create flow charts, graphic organizers, GIFs, and even green screens? Eric Curts truly has covered the gamut of uses and we hope that you will find these resources helpful to increase the engagement of your classroom using the under-dog of Google Apps: Google Drawings!
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