Google Classroom

Features

Google Classroom ties Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Forms, Google Sites, Gmail, and more together to help educational institutions go to a paperless system. Google Calendar was later integrated to help with assignment due dates, field trips, and class speakers. Students can be invited to classrooms through the institution's database, through a private code that can then be added in the student's user interface or automatically imported from a school domain. Each class created with Google Classroom creates a separate folder in the respective user's Google Drive, where the student can submit work to be graded by a teacher.

Assignments

Assignments are stored and graded on Google's suite of productivity applications that allow collaboration between the teacher and the student or student to student. Instead of sharing documents that reside on the student's Google Drive with the teacher, files are hosted on the student's Drive and then submitted for grading. Teachers may choose a file that can then be treated as a template so that every student can edit their own copy and then turn back in for a grade instead of allowing all students to view, copy, or edit the same document. Students can also choose to attach additional documents from their Drive to the assignment. Set assignments appear on the 'To do' list.

Grading

Google Classroom supports many different grading schemes. Teachers have the option to attach files to the assignment which students can view, edit, or get an individual copy. Students can create files and then attach them to the assignment if a copy of a file wasn't created by the teacher. Teachers have the option to monitor the progress of each student on the assignment where they can make comments and edit. Turned in assignments can be graded by the teacher and returned with comments to allow the student to revise the assignment and turn back in. Once graded, assignments can only be edited by the teacher unless the teacher turns the assignment back in.

Communication

Announcements can be posted by teachers to the class stream which can be commented on by students allowing for two-way communication between the teacher and students. Students can also post to the class stream but won't be as high of a priority as an announcement by a teacher and can be moderated. Multiple types of media from Google products such as YouTube videos and Google Drive files can be attached to announcements and posts to share content. Gmail also provides email options for teachers to send emails to one or more students in the Google Classroom interface. Classroom can be accessed on the web or via the Android and iOS Classroom mobile apps.

Originality Report

Originality report was introduced in January 2020. It allows educators and students to see the parts and sections of the submitted work which contains the exact or similar wording to that of another source. For students, it highlights source materials and flags missing citation to assist the student in improving their writing. Teachers can also view the originality report, allowing them to verify the academic integrity of the student's submitted work. On G Suite for Education (free), teachers can turn on originality report for 3 assignments but have limited cloud storage. This restriction is lifted on G Suite Enterprise for Education (paid).

Archive course

Classroom allows instructors to archive courses at the end of a term or year. When a course is archived, it is removed from the homepage and placed in the Archived Classes area to help teachers keep their current classes organized. When a course is archived, teachers and students can view it, but won't be able to make any changes to it until it is restored.

Mobile applications

Google Classroom mobile apps, introduced in January 2015, are available for iOS and Android devices. The apps let users take photos and attach them to their assignments, share files from other apps, and support offline access.