Google Sketchup Models.
February 5, 2009
I continue to be impressed with my sutdents work in Google Sketchup. My primary purpose in having the students learn Sketchup is for them to gain experience learning from the online tutorials, learning to share their expertise as they learn Sketchup, and to gain experience working in a three-dimensional world designing a model. (In the future I’d like to integrate this with a unit on architecture and scale models, asking the students to create a structure with a specific style of architecture and to create it to scale).
One of the challenges of Google Sketchup is that it is such a powerful program. I have been using it for two years and still learn something new almost everyday. Not being the expert in my class for every situation has sometimes been uncomfortable. When the kids ask a question and I don’t immediatly know the answer they sometimes make a funny face, like “Your the teacher, your supposed to know!” Being a perfectionist, this sometimes bothers me. But if I waited until I knew everything about Google Sketchup I would never start and my students would be missing out on this experience.
To me, it’s a process over product debate. As a class we are learning how to use Google Sketchup. I am not the expert at Google Sketchup, but I am an expert learning Sketchup. The students are learning from me what to do when you don’t know something and need to find out. They are learning how to use their friends as resources, how to use the google help files, how to watch and learn from a youtube video (under my supervision).
Here are a couple examples of what students have done this semester.
7 Responses to “Google Sketchup Models.”
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February 5th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
That is such a neat program! I’ll have to check into it for later on in our Chemistry unit. It looks like it would be a pretty great program to help understand the 3-D of molecules.
February 5th, 2009 at 6:23 pm
The more I use the program and learn it’s capabilities the more I am amazed by it’s potential. I just googled ” google sketchup chemistry molecules” and found some already made. I think it would be awesome for the kids to actually make them and work with the geometry of molecular bonding. Awesome Idea!
February 5th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
SketchUp is great in general for 2D and 3D geometry, as well as design. There are some free resources out there – 3DVinci is one source for free tutorials and projects: http://www.3dvinci.net.
February 6th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Greg, I just googled it as well, and some of them are amazing! DNA is wonderfully detailed. I’m going to have to look into using this program more. It would be a wonderful project for the students.
February 6th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
Let me know how I can help. I can also connect you with some of our own students who could help you. A friend of mine just connected me with an architect who uses Sketchup extensively. I’m looking forward to learning more from him. Did you know all (or most) of the 3-D building in Google Earth were made using Sketchup?
February 7th, 2009 at 9:47 am
Someone already posted about my website (www.3dvinci.net) but I wanted to chime in: SketchUp is simply an amzing application, for grade school all the way through professional design. When kids see what they can make with relatively little effort, it’s a great motivational tool to learn more. Here’s my page with info for teachers:
http://www.3dvinci.net/ccp0-display/forteachers.html.
This page also has a link to a free teacher guide with suggested projects for various ages and subjects.
I also want to start posting examples of what kids are making with SketchUp, so if you have any great models, please feel free to pass them my way!
Bonnie Roskes
3DVinci
February 8th, 2009 at 8:44 pm
Wow – sketchup looks awesome. I wish I had more TIME!!!