Lately I’ve noticed two topics mentioned over and over in my Twitter feed as well as in some educational articles. It seems both copyright issues and how to engage students with being creative are hot topics. Sorry for this old cliche but, “Why not kill two birds with one stone?”

Understanding copyrights along with the Teacher’s Act and Fair Use is complicated due to the internet and public sharing. The question keeps arising what is meant by “Within the Four Walls of a Classroom”? In this post I’m not going to talk about the issue itself. Instead I’m going to suggest supporting the students creative thinking skills by showing them how to use Google Drawing to create clipart. This way one can avoid the whole copyright issue by supporting the students creativity.

• Go to Google Drive
  • Click New
  • Scroll down to more
  • Then click on Google Drawings

• Layer shapes to Create Images
  • Insert a shape
  • Change the color
  • Adjust the border
  • Create a second shape
  • Move to back

• Keep repeating above steps until the clipart is finished

THIS IS MY COMPLETED GOOGLE DRAWINGS CLIPART 

• Download Google Drawing as a png or jpeg to use clip art with computer or web based programs

TIPS:

• You can use the Scribble Tool to draw freehand style

• Don’t forget about using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+D or CMD+D for duplicating shapes