Google Classroom
Jayne Sheltra
Welcome!
We are going to spend some time today going over how Google Classroom may be helpful to you!
I’m Jayne Sheltra.
I’ve been teaching for 31 years in the Biddeford School System.
I currently teach ELA to sophomores and reading to an ELL class. I taught grade 1 for one year. I taught SpEd for 27 years at the HS level, teaching or supporting almost every content area. I switched to RegEd after getting my Masters.
Google and I go way back. I’m excited to show you some fun Google goodness!
Learning Outcomes
● Introduce Google Classroom as part of the Google Suite for Education
● Explore the student side of Google classroom to see various application of
○ The STREAM
○ Questions
○ Announcements
○ Assignments
○ Turn in!
● Finding the Google Classroom friends!
● Practice setting up your own Google classroom
○ Settings and permissions
○ Grading
○ Parent access
● Extras and Play Time
Yah, this is pretty ambitious for 1.5
hours, but we’ll give it a whirl!
This is how Google showcases Classroom...
...but it does so much more!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K26iyyQMp_g
The basics:
If Google classroom only renamed the documents for my students, I would still be using it! If it only allowed me to keep all the links for my students available, it would be fine.
But, Google keeps updating the Classroom with user feedback. It is getting better and better. It works across platforms (caveat: not all Doc features are iPad
compatible). It has a clean and user-friendly interface.
It is a great organizational or management tool, regardless of whether you use all the features or just a couple!
Wanna see?
In order to use Google Classroom, you have to be a Google Suites for Education school, and your System Administrator needs to have Classroom enabled for you.
You can only have students in your system enrolled in your class. So, today, you are going to be honorary Biddeford Tigers.
Open up Gmail in Google Chrome and select SIGN IN:
moose**@biddefordschooldepartment.org (** is 2-digit number 01-30 I will assign) Password: Google123
Then, in a new tab, type classroom.google.com
Just a little to start with:
The first time anyone accesses Google classroom, you self-select if you are a TEACHER or a STUDENT.
Then, there is a plus button to join or start a class. We will be joining my class:
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Google assigns TILES for you to keep each of your classes separate if you are in multiples! Any immediate tasks due are clickable links right from the tile (if due dates were established).
[STREAM] [CLASSMATES] [ABOUT]
The CLASSMATES tab:
Lists other enrolled students and the option to email them The ABOUT tab:
An overlooked, but useful page! This can be a spot to leave certain documents that you always want available for students. Possibilities I’ve seen are syllabi,
Standard Classroom Procedures, links for MLA formatting, and templates.
I’m going to insert a Document!
The STREAM
This is where the magic happens!
The teacher view and the student view are slightly different.
The basics
To the left:
a TASK box that shows items due that day
This only works if your tasks were given a due date when assigned!
TOPIC box that lets you search STREAM items by keyword.
This only works if you tagged a TOPIC on the task when it was developed.
Right now, only one keyword can be given to each task.
What students will find:
Announcements
Questions (students can
respond in the Question feed publicly or privately)
Assignments (will be looking for students to submit work )
All tasks allow you to attach files, import from your Drive, insert YouTube videos, or embed a
hyperlink for the students to access. Multiples are allowed!
Time to explore one of each type on the Student side: An Announcement
First: Click on the QUIZ announcement~
This is a standard Google Form set to autograde, so you will be emailed your results. Will you earn a badge?
Google Forms can be used for quizzes, surveys, feedback, or other submissions. Data can be viewed in aggregate or via Google Spreadsheets. It has a quiz grading feature.
Power Users can use Flubaroo for extra self-grading options or Choice Eliminator add-on for scheduling conferences.
You all did great!
Actually, I put in that ANY answer was correct. :)
Why did I make the link to the test an announcement instead of an assignment?
For our purposes today, this is not an assignment that I need to grade nor is it
formative work. It is simply being used to give me some idea about the current level of understanding of prior knowledge you have at this moment.
BTW: I set up this announcement a few days ago, but chose to have this show up in the stream at 1:00 PM today. What a super fun way to do pop quizzes!
QUESTIONS:
I’ve posted two questions in the class stream. Both are looking for reactions to some videos. One is a short answer type; the other is multiple choice.
As a teacher, when I initially set up a Classroom, I can limit whether or not I want students to be able to post or comment.
You can also limit if students can edit their responses or they can comment to other students.
Teachers can MUTE a student if needed!
I rarely use questions, but other teachers use them a lot!
I tend to use them at the beginning of the semester.
They are great wrap up activities to provide a quick recap or gauge understanding. They
are really effective for brainstorming.
ASSIGNMENTS
On the student side, the assignments are pretty straight forward. Students have the option to ADD documents or links to an assignment or CREATE new documents right from the task.
On the teacher side, there are some big differences as these can be graded from within Google Classroom!
IF you have attached more than 4 items, they may not all show in the STREAM.
Students would have to click on the Title of the assignment. That opens the assignment for all options. (This similar to when students can opt to answer a Question privately.
We interrupt this presentation for some Google Classroom interactions!
BTW: Your docs/assignments need to be ready to go when you upload to Classroom!
G-Classroom Friends
More and more websites are integrating with Google Classroom, making it easy to incorporate even more resources for your students. I had a few available in your STREAM today.
Websites change all the time. They disappear altogether. They change from free to payment requirements.
Try some out. Use what you love. Play, play, play!
Some I
showed you:
Newsela OpenEd Quizzizz But there are more...
The SET-UP: Let’s start a trial classroom.
Enroll your students yourself with your Gmail contacts or give them a unique code.
You can always come back and change some settings, like Guardian Summaries or allowing student comments.
TOPICS:
Topic are like tag words.
You (so far) can only use 1 topic at a time.
This helps with organizing the student STREAM.
These can be done ahead of time or as you add more elements to the Classroom.
SUPERSTARS: Don’t let this list get too wieldy!
We interrupt this presentation for some Google Classroom interactions!
Start slow. Add in features as you can/want!
Make sure you have a good understanding of what documents, links, or videos you want to be in an assignment before establishing it.
Remember to use the drop down arrows (To more than one class? Certain students? Make a copy?
Post or schedule?)!
Google Classroom may feel like it has a pretty big learning curve to you, but our high school students have become pro users in mere minutes.
Power users will need to consider turning off notifications! It is all or none.
Assignments Pointers:
Have your Google Docs or Google Forms finalized before attaching them to the assignments.
Once they have been renamed for each student, they will not see new edits to the document.
Learn to use TABLES in documents. This allows students to enter in responses without messing up the text.
Students can attach items to the assignment tasks as well. This is great for attaching pictures they may have taken of a drawing they did!
When the students say “I can’t find my doc!”, it is in their CLASSROOM folder in their drive!
This is a GRADE screen for one of the questions. It looks different if there is an attached file.
Grading Pointers
Don’t feel bad if you don’t always use the grading feature.
When students TURN IN their assignment,
ownership is given to you. They can no longer edit it if it is a document. When you RETURN it,
ownership reverts to the student.
Do use the PRIVATE COMMENT feature --students seem to love this!
If you want to do a 4-point type of scale, decimal amounts are not allowed.
A Fun Extra
Are you familiar with Chrome Extensions? How about one that will let you automatically send a webpage that will open in the students’ browser?
From the Chrome App Store, find the Share to Classroom extension and install it. All your students will need to do the same!
Once it is enabled, you will see a little G-Classroom icon in your Chrome browser.
When you are at a page you like, you can choose the regular class options OR push that page to the students.
Another EXTRA
There is now a Google Classroom APP!
This allows one extra feature. You can use the PEN feature on the app to draw or write on the document submitted. Then, the work is saved as a PDF.
The WORK page:
This gives you an overview of ALL the assignments -- to me, it seems unwieldy. Let me know if you find a way to make it useful!
Thank you!
I’ll have our IT guy leave the moose** emails valid for a bit.
If you would like any of the materials sent to your REAL email, send me a request with what you would like to see.
I will be sending this Google Slides presentation to the emails I have from registration.
I will also have it uploaded to the MooseTech materials page.
Thank you again! I hope you found parts of Google Classroom that you can use.
