{"id":168,"date":"2016-10-10T11:20:59","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T15:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/?p=168"},"modified":"2018-06-18T11:09:09","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T17:09:09","slug":"google-sketchup-3d-modelling-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/2016\/10\/10\/google-sketchup-3d-modelling-software\/","title":{"rendered":"Google SketchUp: 3D Modelling Software"},"content":{"rendered":"

Teacher Editorial<\/span> | By Steven Montgomery (BOLT student)
\n<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sketch Up is part of Google\u2019s collection of programs available for industry and education.\u00a0 Sketch Up is available free to Alberta teachers through a provincial purchase licence, talk to your division\u2019s tech department to get an activation code.\u00a0 Your code will allow students and teachers to use the full professional version of Sketch Up.<\/p>\n

Sketch Up has many possible uses for students and teachers in the classroom.\u00a0 It boasts an impressive warehouse of downloadable files covering many different subjects and items.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is an extensive bank of tutorial videos available on YouTube for all levels of ability and skill.<\/p>\n

For Example:<\/strong><\/p>\n

CTS:<\/strong>\u00a0 Obviously Sketch Up is an excellent drafting program for beginners, intermediate users and expert uses.\u00a0 It is suitable for small to very large projects and can work with both SAE and metric units.\u00a0 Files can be exported into several formats for using different CNC equipment.\u00a0 (ie. it can be used for 3-D printers, routers, or other compatible equipment).\u00a0 It is suitable for woodworking, construction and fabrication (metalworking).\u00a0 Students can see their project in 3-D before trying to make or assemble their project and see what it looks like and to make sure that all of the pieces will fit, or have the proper clearances.<\/p>\n

Math and Science:<\/strong> Sketch Up can be used to visualize 3-D models.\u00a0 No longer do teachers need to try to draw 3-D models on a blackboard, whiteboard, or smartboard.\u00a0 Using the warehouse, you can download a 3-D model of an organic model, dodecahedron, or pulley system and rotate it for students to see in full 3-D.\u00a0 Students can use unit conversions to change between metric or SAE units, use fraction addition and subtraction to determine distances using inches and feet, 2-D and 3-D visualization, measuring and drawing angles using a protractor, draw 3-D plans for investigations and labs.<\/p>\n

Social and English:<\/strong>\u00a0 Additionally, this digital tool can be used to show sites or historical objects.\u00a0 Take students on a tour of the palace of Versailles or examine Shakespeare\u2019s globe theatre!\u00a0 It is possible to walk through a building to see the actor\u2019s or character\u2019s setting.\u00a0 If a class is doing a drama production, the students can plan the sets and plan blocking on a model of their stage.<\/p>\n

Why use Sketch Up?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ease to use<\/strong> \u2013 Sketch Up is fast to learn and easy to use.\u00a0 Like all of Google\u2019s products, it will work on PC and Mac computers.\u00a0 Students will be able to draw their first basic shapes extremely quickly.\u00a0 The control is straightforward and intuitive.\u00a0 With two clicks, students and teachers can make a basic 2-D shape (rectangle, circle, or polygon).\u00a0 You simply draw the shape and type in the measurements to make the shape the exact size that you want.\u00a0 Users then use the push\/pull tool to change it into a 3-D shape, and then type in the desired depth.\u00a0 Quickly using the orbit or pan tool, you can zoom in or out and rotate the object to see it from any angle.\u00a0 Dimensions can be added with a couple of clicks, and labelled on the diagram.<\/p>\n

Tutorials<\/strong> \u2013 A quick YouTube search will show over 800 thousand videos.\u00a0 There are many different tutorials for all of the basic and advanced features including shortcuts.\u00a0 Students can quickly look up what they want to do and find a lesson of how to achieve their goal.\u00a0 Students can use the video makers YouTube channel to contact professionals willing to share their skills and maybe even be a mentor for students interesting in pursuing further skills. Teachers don\u2019t have to be an expert and students develop the independent learning skills and higher order thinking skills and 21st<\/sup> Century skills that teachers should be encouraging in students.<\/p>\n

Warehouse <\/strong>\u2013 There is an extremely large database of downloadable example files.\u00a0 Teachers and students can easily search for whatever they need.\u00a0 There is a huge selection of files made by teachers for teachers, as well as students.\u00a0 For students there contain 3-D models of famous landmarks, different woodworking and metal fabrication projects.\u00a0 Teachers can find models for demonstration use – for example 3-D models of cubes, rectangular prisms, pyramids and especially compound shapes.<\/p>\n

Extensions<\/strong> – A large number of extensions are available to speed up complicated tasks.\u00a0 You can resize objects, add all dimensions measurements, and render animations in 2-D and 3-D, in addition to over 200 other options.\u00a0 The extensions are just like browser extensions that can be imported quickly and easily into Sketch Up.<\/p>\n

In the Classroom<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a classroom teacher, I have used Sketch Up with a couple of math classes and found it very useful.\u00a0 I used it with Math10-3 to demonstrate the use of fractions with imperial units for SAE units (inches and feet).\u00a0 An actual blueprint and 3-D model make it far more real for students to see when fraction addition is really used and how most blueprints are missing every dimension because the last length can be easily calculated.\u00a0 As many of these students will proceed to the trades, this real world application will be something that many of them use throughout their careers.<\/p>\n

For surface area in Math 8, students find 3-D paper models useful but there is a limit to how many nets a student can make.\u00a0 Using 2-D nets a student can quickly draw multiple nets, print them and then try to assemble them into 3-D shapes.\u00a0 After looking at several students start to see the relationships between 2-D and 3-D shapes.\u00a0 Using this relationship students understand how the edges of one shape from the edge of the adjacent side allowing them too quickly and easily determine the surface area of different shapes.\u00a0 This allows them then to adapt to compound shapes with multiple prisms and pyramids.<\/p>\n

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About the Contributor<\/strong><\/p>\n

Steven Montgomery is a math and physics teacher at Barrhead Composite High School.\u00a0 During his 18 years of teaching, Steven has taught a variety of course in Math, Science, French and Physical Education from grade 5 to 12.\u00a0 He was seconded to the Distributed Learning Branch as the project manager for the online Physics 30 course.\u00a0 Steven has presented many professional development sessions on integrating computers into the classroom and helped teachers develop their computer skills. He is constantly looking for new ways to improve his students\u2019 learning using technology.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Creative<\/a>
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Teacher Editorial | By Steven Montgomery (BOLT student) Sketch Up is part of Google\u2019s collection of programs available for industry and education.\u00a0 Sketch Up is available free to Alberta teachers through a provincial purchase licence, talk to your division\u2019s tech department to get an activation code.\u00a0 Your code will allow students and teachers to use […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":""},"categories":[9,6,5,20],"tags":[48,46,50,47,49,28],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=168"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":575,"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/168\/revisions\/575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bolt.athabascau.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}