It has come to my attention that there are many intricacies in Google SketchUp that will require much more exploration. Here are some tricky areas I must master before I introduce this to students:
1. Sketching rectangles is harder than it sounds. When using a track pad instead of a mouse, I found that I had uneven walls which would not be ideal on a real-world construction site. I would make sure that students would have a mouse at all times when using Google SketchUp.
2. In the third picture on the left, you will notice a chair being scaled into a bench. Sounds like a great math lesson right? Well the scale function in Google SketchUp is tricky to work with. I honestly still haven't gotten it right. When I plugged in the measurements to double the seat, I doubled the size of the whole chair. I need to keep playing. :)
3. You can get carried away with color. There is an option to change the color of walls/objects. I have a feeling that students would go color crazy and not focus on the task at hand.
4. I will have to do some major schmoozing to get my IT guy to download this software onto 25 computers. It is a small file and doesn't take long to install, but I have found that software requests are not received well in my district. I know that I could have students during class time but that would not be the best use of time.
Overall, I am happy with Google SketchUp. It has the ability to make math concepts like area and perimeter much more meaningful and visual. It also has the ability to give math teachers a clear visual of an x, y, z graph and allow students to play with that concept.
Yet another RAVE from Jessica Goodenow!
