I’m switching my teams to digital notebooks this year. Last year I had a hard time scanning the physical notebooks for events that required a digital notebook. I think it will be easier to print the digital notebooks when they need to have a physical notebook on hand.
Anyway, I was looking over the digital notebook template from the REC library and I need suggestions on how students can use the different pages within the template. For instance, how can students draw out design ideas on the template? It’s not neccesarily easy to draw things out on Google Slides, which is what I will be using. Would it be best for them to draw out the design and then take a picture and upload to the slides?
I appreciate any suggestions for using the digital template. Thanks!
Yea, that is what I am doing, I recommend you just draw it out
Some of my students use a CAD application (Student licenses of OnShape, Solidworks, or Inventor) but a simple approach is to draw on paper and screenshot it with mobile device or scan it into the document.
We provide a Google Doc with template pages - Timeline, Strategy, Design, Build, Test, etc. which remind students what they should be putting in their notebook. A quick review helps coaches encourage teams to work on specific aspects. Eg: They start building their robot without any build plans.
Our team sometimes makes our brainstorms out of google slide shapes, which looks alright. Sometimes we draw them on paper too.
same here, I like to draw the shapes over existing images
Ex.
Wow! How do you do this?
Would Google Drawings work the same as a CAD application?
Our team for online notebooks did PowerPoint. I think it was really easy.
Google Drawings would be a 2D environment where CAD would give them a 3D model. It all depends on the aptitude of the students. Our program has students from age 8 to 18 so we support paper, 2D graphics, and 3D modeling. The goal is to get them planning and to document those plans. The only challenge we have with paper is that you need to either scan or photograph it.
Our base framework is the Google Doc which allows teammates to collaborate, our mentors can review the notebooks, and it can be exported to PDF or printed.
Most of the Google and CAD applications are free for students (education license). Often they can find a YouTube video to learn how to use them.