Classroom Update

Post date: Sep 06, 2015 9:50:17 AM

This week in Grantown Grammar School we had a whole school staff sharing session purely on Google Classroom, looking critically at strengths, weaknesses, tips and tricks. There were many many positives, interesting comments from pupils were relayed back, 'Classroom is Class!'. Teachers found it saved their time in creating individul copies of documents for each student as this is created automatically. Having the ability to have feedback on returned work online, allowed for reflection and further discussions. You can also create your assignments and tasks for the future and release them when required.

Network concerns were raised, the network had not be operational one afternoon in the school, this is something that needs to be adressed, though there are developments afoot with the new Scottish Wide Area Network (SWAN) that is coming soon.

There is still some room for growth in understanding the folder structure in Google Classroom Folder. Alice Keelers blog was referred to as really helpful, also editing word and pdfs, but this can be resolved with the right extensions. Overall Teachers really felt it gave the pupils direct access to assignments, there was no room for forgetting documents or files, all the files are there in a very accessible way. For Distance Learning and opening up classrooms to other pupils to increase choices it was felt a benefit. Training on the Google Education Centre was also referred to as very useful.

One aspect of real interest was that as you can see the time homework was being turned in, it gave great info. Guidance teachers were picking up on the times pupils were returning their homework (i.e late at night). We also found pupils were returning homework Friday lunchtimes, to clear their decks for the weekend! All great stats to support learning. 

Head Teacher Irene Carson, was delighted to see such progress after on a short amount of time between being introduced to Google Apps for Education. In other areas of Highland we have heard that pupils have asked for their homework to be put on Google Classroom as it helps them! You can't really get better feedback than that.