A few weeks ago I decided to procrastinate on some school work and began to play with Google's SketchUp. I watched an educational video where a history teacher incorporates the principles used in SketchUp to have his students recreate buildings from the era that they are studying. They then, post those to a webpage that they create and write about the significance of the era, the building, and any important folks of the time. It sounded as the class is collaboratively rebuilding an awesome history book. Immediately I was into it.
I knew I wanted to look into it for Geometry class since it is free and it can
help me to apply some of the rules that we learn in the class. The program itself is pretty complicated, however, I found that it also offers some tutorial videos that were recently produced. These videos take you through so many aspects and break it down into all of its simplicity. Within minutes, I created a three dimensional house where I could walk through the door and explore the inside. One of the cool things that I thought about while doing this was that I was probably going to use this program to help me finish my basement sometime in the future.
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So back to the educational value for my students. I wanted them to experience some of the power of SketchUp. I noticed one of the other math teachers does a tessellation project with his students at the end of the year. I was finishing up the semester with my students and I told him that my students would be able to create something just as good as his best or even better. My goal was for them to design their projects using the tool and then recreate it using colored pencils. What I found out was that it took a really long time if they were to recreate it so I nixed that idea. I showed them how to do different tessellations each day for a week and gave them 15-20 minutes to create their own designs using the principle learned. On the week of their midterm, they were to design a unique tessellation that had a theme and incorporated at least two tessellations. What was created was amazing.
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One student created a design that portrayed the game MineCraft in 2D. Another student created a snowflake using some of SketchUp's 3D features. Other students never finished, but to give you an idea, one created a design with Black Widow spiders and another student was creating a windmill out of fans.
I am so blown away by the power of this program that I need to sit back for a minute and find out exactly where it can be incorporated. If I were to introduce this early in the year, who knows what could be designed by the end of the year.
