Google Classroom

This blog entry is about a tool in Dr. Wang's PPT about previous T3PP results. Specifically Google Classroom in the Google Technologies list. This tool is free to use with a google account, and is a "virtual classroom." When you first enter the site you are prompted to either create a class or join a class.

Here is what my classroom looks like when you first enter it:

On this first page, as an educator, you can post announcements for your students and respond to any questions they might have. The cool thing about this is you have the option to schedule when your announcements will be posted, so if you wanted to post an announcement to remind students about an upcoming assignment or something like that, you can schedule it to do that for you.

At the top of the screen there is the "Classwork" tab, which is where you can create assignments, quizzes, ask short answer questions, and post materials for your students to view. You also have the option to create "topics" to organize all your posts into various subjects, which is a neat feature. 

One thing that I did notice is that creating a "Quiz assignment" requires you to use another Google resource, Google Forms. To create a quiz you first make a title, you can insert a short description if you would like, you can choose which students have access, how many points it is worth, assign a due date, attach a rubric if you would like, and then there is a link to a Google Forms file. This google form is your actual quiz, so you will have to enter that application and create your quiz there before creating the quiz assignment in Google Classroom.

I was unable to explore the feature of "Grading" because I don't have any actual students in my classroom, and therefore no assignments to grade, so I cannot talk much about that. However in the "People" tab, here is how to invite people to your google classroom:

You can invite more teachers, giving them the same access as you to modify the classroom, which is useful if you are co-teaching. But I focused on adding students. By clicking on the little person icon next to students, you can add students through entering their email, or using the invite link at the top of the pop-up, OR if you scroll back up to my first image there is a "class code" on the homepage, that students can enter to join the class.

Once you add your students they have access to all your announcements, assignments, and materials! :)

Overall, I think this website is an excellent resource and extremely easy to use. It is a completely virtual classroom, which is extremely useful for virtual learning, assignments to be completed at home, or even just sharing of materials.

I think it has a lot of versatility because each teacher can customize it to fit their needs. You can customize your appearance of the classroom as well to make it more personalized. There is also a limitless amount of assignments/materials/resources you can share with your students!

And finally, I think the overall likelihood of using this tool in my classroom is extremely high. Most students have an email already provided to them by the school district, so they would have access to the google classroom. It's a great way to post reminders for the class, or assign anything that didn't get done during class time. It is also nice because parents can login through their students accounts and see what we're doing in class.