I love to customize my Google Classroom banners. I mean, the ones provided by Google are super cute, but if you can add a Bitmoji then it’s better I say. I also sometimes include some icons for the content area. I create my own to avoid copyright issues, but noun project is another great resource to use.
You will create these in Google Drawing. Google Drawing is located in your Drive under more ย or in your Google waffle.
Now we want to go to page set-up under file, select custom, change inches to pixels and create an 800 x 200 pixel canvas.
Now the fun can begin. If you right click (or control click) on the canvas it will allow you to change the background of the canvas. I like to use the gradient feature so the middle is a little lighter.
I’ve you know ANYTHING about me, you know I like to use the Bitmoji extension. You can learn about how to use the extension in this blog post. Now remember, you don’t want to put words in the middle of you banner because Google Classroom will put the class label in the middle. You also want to leave a little room on the outside edges so it fits your browser configuration.
I added the words Happy Holidays too. Word Art is another fun tool to use if you want to play around with it.
Now you are ready to download your creation. I like .png, but you can also use .jpg
Now that you have your image in your downloads folder or whatever location you send your downloads. Now let’s put this into Google Classroom. Click on the upload photo link in the bottom right corner. Select or drag your image in. TAH DAH, you have a new custom header.
You can see my previous custom header and the new holiday header I just created. Notice the color does get a little darker when you upload. You might also play around with the location of your images. I move mine more towards the top than centered so it looks centered once inside of Classroom.
Now, let’s take this a step further. How about you let students create custom headers and each week you display a new one? Evan Mosier is having one of his classes do this and he has shared a site will the headers created by his students. They are free for anyone to use.
If you make one of your own, let me know @MandiTolenEDU on Twitter. If you use a banner from one of Evan’s students, give them a shout-out on Twitter.
I’ve never forgiven Google for changing the banner so that it’s got a gray filter on it now. LOL Now my poor Bitmoji looks like she’s sitting in the dark. ๐
I just noticed this after following these (fantastic) instructions that it’s all dark!
Unfortunately that is something Google does now. I keep requesting that they change it back.
Yep, hate it!!! SO dull and dark! Also having trouble getting my banner items to move once they are uploaded!
Thank you for sharing this!!
Thanks for this tutorial. The best I’ve seen. This one is perfect.
Thank you so much. I’m a student and I needed to make some changes to my club google classroom and this helped so much!
How did you get the infinitely teaching banner at the top? I want to use the infinity symbol for my Google Classroom, but the only bitmoji I can find is “I love you x infinity” with hearts on it. I want to have a different saying on mine.
This is an awesome post and now I’ll be spending a couple hours making my own ๐
I drew it on my iPad
You might also try an online editor like lunapix. You might be able to fill the words and blend it.