Roxi Thompson

I recently saw a post from Marshall Beyer ( @MarshallBeyer29 ) about an activity he did with students in which they created scenes in Google Drawings to demonstrate their learning. It looked really awesome, so I decided to try it in my classroom! A few weeks ago, students chose a Native American region to research. One of the resources they used was an article from Newsela. I created an assignment in which they were challenged to use Google Drawings to create a scene that demonstrated what they learned about the Native American region from the article.  I gave my students a set of directions that included an example of a scene that I created. Here are the directions: One of the things I'm working on this year is letting students explore the digital tools we use instead of showing them how to use them step-by-step. It's challenging at first, but they are so proud of themselves when they discover all the different ways they can create! I also love how eager they ...

We just wrapped up our first week of school! I really enjoyed meeting and getting to know our new 5th grade students! Here are some of the activities we did to start building our classroom culture and learn more about each other: "All About Me" Google Drawing Students learned how to use some of the basic features of Google Drawings by creating a Drawing about themselves. The basic requirements were that they include their name, a picture of themselves, and text/images that describe their personalities or interests. I created an example to give them an idea of what it could look like.  I used this activity last year, and I really enjoyed what my students created. However, I decided this year to give them more time to just play with and explore the tools in Google Drawing. I feel like this really paid off because students were able to discover how to use some of the tools and share with each other instead of just relying on me to show them how to use it.  ...

Earlier this year, Matt Miller ( @jmattmiller ) wrote an awesome blog post titled  "Caption This! A fun, deep-thinking Google Drawings activity." The blog post was co-authored by Laura Steinbrink ( @SteinbrinkLaura ) and it included an explanation of four different activities that could be created using Google Drawings or Google Slides. They also provided templates, tips, and examples of how to use each of these activities in the classroom. ( Click here to read the original post. ) I tried the "Caption This & Comment" activity for a Martin Luther King Jr. unit we were doing in class. In order to build some background knowledge, students completed a few different activities: Google Arts & Culture : I tried to hook students' attention by having them explore images related to King . They chose one image that stood out to them and they shared it on a collaborative Padlet board with an explanation of why they chose it.  YouTube Playlist: ...