John Hendron, Goochland County Public Schools with Bea Cantor
Check out his blog, http://johnhendron.net/ for video tutorials and other information. Try http://www.johnhendron.net/digest/google-sketchup/ for SketchUp in particular.
SketchUp was designed for architects. Google bought the company because of Google Earth–use the program to build buildings and place them in Google Earth. Have people build the buildings.
Takes about 12 hours of training to get comfortable–recommended for teacher training.
Set up preferences for mouse for 3 buttons. Set up preferences.
Practiced different shapes, selection tool. Kids might get bored so do via a demo and then have them practice. Easy to develop bad habits that cause problems later in more complex drawings. Good to develop these habits from the start.
3/4th grades supposed to learn about Greek and Roman architecture. He used SketchUp. Can get models quickly from the 3D Warehouse within Google SketchUp to use in class for activities.
3 or 4th grade earliest. May have problems visualizing 3D.
Rotate tool is most difficult to use. Works best with components.
Tried replacing component materials on 3D warehouse model. Some models have several components within them. When you edit one component that has been copied, all the copies change as well.
X-ray tool useful for helping younger kids visualize in 3D what the relationship of inside to out.
Showed examples of teachers/students:
- Foreign Language–Latin students, built a Roman house based on archeological digs and added labels to the different rooms, different thing for them
- Early Childhood Students–modeled ideal K classroom with kids, components, colors, etc.
Mentioned use in woodworking.
Paid version gives more choices for printing and exporting to use in other programs.
Built a simple house with peaked roof. Really need to think about the pieces that go into a house (from a 3D perspective).
Excellent workshop. Very well done.
