Intro to Google Classroom

Participants: ABC Teachers

Date: November 4th, 2014

Trainers: Jennifer Garcia and Rodrigo Alfaro

Introduction

In this session you will learn the basics for using Google Classroom in your daily work.

Google classroom not only allows you to create and monitor online assignments, but it also lets you specify turn in date, monitor student work and grade online.

Have a quick look at the video below to see how it works.

What the Students Can See

Students see things a bit differently in Classroom than teachers do. Join this test class by logging into your Google Apps for Education Account and clicking on this link.

Click Join Your First Class and type in the code you have been given.

If you are successful you will have joined the following class. Have a look around.

Creating Your First Class

Now that you have had a quick look it is time to create your first class. Log into your Google Apps for Education Account and go to your Google Drive or GMail.

Click on More.

Select Classroom and create a new classroom by clicking on the create classroom icon.

If you don't see the option click here to sign up.

Next you will need to determine how you would prefer to add your students.

You can invite them to join using the contacts list.

You can send them the code to join the classroom.

You can also look up your Google Groups in you contact list and invite the entire group.

Communicating with Students

Google Classroom really aids in keeping the lines of communication open. When you assign and activity in your classroom, the students receive an email with all the important information you have added.

You can also easily email them from the Students menu by selecting them and using the Actions button

or by clicking the email button next to a student's name.

You might want to try add a welcome message for students in the stream.

When you add an assignment a folder is created in your Google Drive Classroom Folder where your resources are stored as well as access to student documents you create for them.

You can add files manually to this folder by dropping and dragging them in or moving them within Google Drive.

Students cannot view these folders. They will have their own folder created by Google Classroom in their own Google Drive.

Notice the options that are available to you when accessing student owned documents in Drive.

You can toggle between making suggestions andY the documents.

You can also add comments to the document by clicking the Comments button...

... or by selecting elements within the document and right clicking and selecting Comment.

Adding Assignments

There are many useful options for getting information to students for you assignments.

In this first example I have added a Youtube video to the assignment.

I find that the Video search option is more reliable than the url option which usually gives a message saying the video no longer exists. This may be a problem with our GAFE accounts. It also happens when we use this option in Google Presentations at our school.

This is what the assignment looks like so far. At this point you could elect to add hyperlinks, attachments and google documents to the assignment.

Select the Google Document you want to share.

Notice the options you have for sharing Google Documents with students.

Student assignments will not be visible to the teacher until the student has joined the class and opened email and opened the document.

Recently Google Classroom added the option to reuse posts. This is great for teachers who have more than one class in a subject, as they can reuse posts sent to their other lessons and even modify them prior to sending them out to the students.

Once the students have opened their assignments, you can send them a note, see if they have been turned in, grade and comment on their work.

Google has also added a question tool in to the options available for teachers. This is great for quick questions, starters, exit tickets and quick reviews.

Notice that you can add attachments and set due dates ad assign it to various classes, and engage in a discussion, in the same way that you can with regular assignments.

Once the question is asked the teacher easily can monitor student responses.

The Stream

When you post items to the stream they appear not only in your Google Classroom, but also in your students' email accounts.

This makes it very useful for sending reminders and even setting homework if you choose not to set it as an assignment.

If you don't want students writing in the stream, you can toggle student privileges on and off as needed.

Accessing Your Classes

You can access all of your classes by clicking on the list icon in the top left hand corner.