Chromebooks as Tools for Creativity

 

Chromebooks have come a long way in eight years and our most recent webinar shows just that. The focus this month was Chromebooks as Tools for Creativity and our three panelists showcased a variety of ways that the Chromebook can be used for much more than document processing and research.

You can view the Youtube Live Event at https://youtu.be/EZEx0gz9vus and the resources from the panel at http://edtech.team/creativechromebooks.

Here are just a few of the ideas and strategies our panelists shared:

Austin Houp shared Book Creator’s new web-based application. Formerly only available on the iPad, it is now on Chromebooks and better than ever! Each teacher can register for a class for free and can have up to 40 books in his/her library. When a student is finished with a book, they export it as a PDF and then start over! His favorite super trick is “app smashing” Google’s AutoDraw tool with Book Creator. Check out the resources to see how he does it.

Did you know that Google Slides and Drawings have identical toolbars? That is what I, Amanda Taylor, shared during my part of the webinar. There are so many creative ways teachers and students can use just these two simple applications to create on the Chromebook. My favorite super trick is using Google Slides for animation. You will find a link to my sample in the resources.

In Chris Moore’s class, it’s all about choice, and he uses Symbaloo on his class blog to facilitate a “choice-based student portfolio”. Every day students come in and head to the blog to start working on the next addition to their portfolio. How awesome is that! Students have a huge variety of tools to choose from as they work including Canva, Co-Spaces, TinkerCad, FlowLab and more. Chris also gave us a short demonstration of how students can use the Polyline tool in Drawings or Slides to create Vector Art. It’s the perfect way to get your students into a productive struggle.

We want to thank all of our panelists and our wonderful moderator Lisa Thumann for another great resource.

Speaking of resources, did you know EdTechTeam has several online courses that would help further your learning from this webinar? Check out these two courses; Slides and Drawings and Chromebooks in the Classroom to level up your own skills.

Please take a look at the archive for all the amazing information shared this month with links to everything our panelists spoke about.

And, as always, remember you can bring any and all of this to your school or district by filling out our request form at https://www.edtechteam.com/request/.

To see the archive of all our Teaching & Learning monthly webinars visit our Youtube playlist. Also, don’t forget to register for June’s webinar with @Elizann819, @ericcurts @LATOY2018 as we talk about Improving Student Writing.

Amanda Taylor
Director of Professional Development
EdTechTeam
@TeacherAndGeek

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