A lot of people use Google’s most popular tools to keep their lives in order and get their work done. These tools are Gmail; Google Calendar; Gmail Docs. There are a lot of collaboration-friendly tools that have changed how we communicate, work together and store information on the internet. It’s good for teachers and students to use Google Classroom, which is a good tool for teaching and learning. It allows teachers and students to share, assess, and collaborate digitally in the classroom. Tens of millions of teachers and students use Google Classroom in hundreds of schools around the world, making it one of the most popular edtech tools on the market right now.
Google Classroom: What is it?
“Google Classroom is mission control for your classroom,” which might be a good way to think about it. When it comes to teachers and students, it’s a platform that brings together Google’s Workspace tools (also known as G Suite). It also serves as a digital organizer where teachers can keep class materials and share them with students, all without having to print them out first. It’s from there that you can pick and choose which features you want to add. Google Classroom is one of the most popular tech tools today because it’s easy to use and works with many of Google’s other popular tools.
Is Google Classroom an LMS?
There isn’t a correct answer. Google Classroom is not a stand-alone learning management system (LMS), course management system (CMS), or student information system (SIS) (SIS). However, Google is always making changes to Google Classroom. Skyward 2.0 and Infinite Campus will be able to share data with Google Classroom in April 2021. According to Google, more SIS integrations are being tested or are in the works. As more features are added to Google, it may start to look and work more like an LMS. But for now, it’s best to think of the tool as a one-stop shop for organizing your class.
Who can use Google Classroom?
Anyone! As long as you have a personal Google account, you can use the Google Classroom service for free. It’s also free for groups that use Google Workspace for Education or Google Workspace for non-profit groups. Most of the time, teachers and students can use a Google account that their school gives them to access Google Classroom. Even though teachers and students in schools are the main users of Google Classroom, there are also features that administrators, families, clubs, and homeschoolers can use.
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How to Set up?
Even if you’re a first-time user of Google Classroom, the process of setting it up is pretty simple. It’s best to go to the Google for Education Teacher Center first if you want the most up-to-date videos and information. There are several tutorials there to help you get started. There are also a lot of how-to videos on YouTube from teachers and people who work with technology. Many of these videos are made by teachers who have used the platform in their classrooms. They share practical tips and tricks they’ve learned.
How can it support differentiation in the classroom?
Google Classroom makes it easy to make assignments that are different for each student or a small group. Teachers can give different assignments to different students or groups of students in a class. You can also check in with a student one-on-one to see if they have any questions or need more help. Students won’t feel like they’re being singled out when you use an online differentiation strategy like this one. They won’t feel that way with other types of differentiation.
It doesn’t matter if you use a tool like Google Classroom or not. Differentiation is always going to be about coming up with creative ways to solve problems. Fortunately, a lot of teachers share their tips, tricks, and creative solutions with the world.
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How can administrators and curriculum coaches use Google Classroom?
It’s important for administrators and teachers to know how to use it.
In Google Classroom, you don’t have to be a teacher. Superintendents, principals, and curriculum coaches can use Google Classroom to keep track of staff notes, dates, documents, and other resources for teachers and other school staff. With Google Classroom, administrators can deliberately show off some of the tech skills and abilities they want teachers to have.
Curriculum coaches can use Google Forms to make anonymous questionnaires to get feedback on recent professional development. Coaches could even go one step further and post videos of model lessons for teachers in their district to see. This is a great way to get new teachers up to speed in a new school or district.
How can teachers use it?
When teachers use it, they do it in a lot of different ways because it’s a good platform. With Google Classroom, teachers can:
- Make it easier to run their classes. A lot of “shortcuts” are built into the platform because it works with other Google tools like Docs, Drive, Forms, Meet, and Calendar. To show your students, for example, if you put an assignment with a due date up, it will show up on their class calendar.
Digitally organize, distribute and collect assignments You can do this by using a computer to keep track of your assignments and course materials (think: videos, websites, PDFs, and more), as well as your student work. When teachers want to share an assignment with a lot of students, they can also change and reuse the assignment from one year to the next. In some cases, Google Classroom can help you avoid some trips to the photocopier and cut down on some of the paper-shuffle that comes with teaching and learning.
- Communicate with students about their classwork.Students should talk to each other about their classwork. To make announcements and remind people about their assignments, you can use the platform. You can also use it to see who’s done their work and who hasn’t. You can also check in with each student one-on-one, answer their questions, and offer help.
- Give students feedback on their assignments and tests as soon as possible. As a teacher in Google Classroom, you can use a tool called Google Forms to make and share quizzes that are automatically graded as students turn them in. A lot less time will be spent grading your student’s work, and you’ll also give them instant feedback on their work. Teachers can see individual and class data in Forms or Sheets that is automatically made.
With Google Classroom, how can families and parents keep up with what is going on?
Unlike tools like Seesaw or ClassDojo, Google Classroom does not offer as much communication as tools like Remind or Seesaw. As parents and families, Google refers to them as “guardians.” They can choose to get email summaries of missed work, upcoming work, and other classwork. Even though, it doesn’t have direct-messaging features for families, nor does it let families comment on their kids’ work.
In Google Classroom, what’s new?
The platform has been changed a lot since it was first released. Google often adds new features based on feedback from teachers. There are a lot of new things that have been added recently, like grades, rubrics, and integration with Google Meet. Another new feature called “originality reports” is a tool that checks a student’s Google Document against pages and books that are already online. If the feature is turned on, students can run reports on their assignments before they send them in. Teachers can run them after. Teachers may want to use the originality reports feature to show students how important it is to credit their sources when they write something.
Also Read: Google Workspace 2021: New Updates and Features Listed here
What other apps and websites integrate with Google Classroom?
There are a lot of apps and websites that work with it.
There are now hundreds of apps and websites that work with Google Classroom. Some of these apps may work with Google, while others make their own third-party add-ons and put them on Chrome. If you use it a lot, you might be able to use other edtech tools to help you teach faster.
Use the Google Classroom integration if you want your students to study some vocabulary words with Quizlet. You can share and assign a specific set of flashcards to your class. Integrations with publishers like Newsela, Khan Academy, and BrainPop make it easy for teachers to find educational content online. You can find articles, videos, and other educational content to share with your students through these publishers.
You can read about a few of them in our post about apps and websites that work with Google Classroom. The list doesn’t stop there. You may be able to link an ed-tech app or website to your Google Classroom account if you like.
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Closing Statement
For official information about Google Classroom, check out the Twitter feed of Google for Education. There are product updates, ideas for teachers, videos, and even a newsletter about Google Workspace for Education products that you can sign up for there. They also tweet, blog, and even podcast about how they use Google Classroom with their students. Google Classroom is being used by millions of teachers and edtech experts all over the world, so it’s easy to get ideas and tips from other teachers.
