Everything Teachers Should Know About Google Classroom 1

Everything Teachers Should Know About Google Classroom 1

Nobody saw the Coronavirus pandemic coming, and no country or group was prepared for the overwhelming impact it has had on society. The disruption caused to every society's ‘normal’ ways of doing things forced every organization out of its comfort zones.

For educational institutions, the transition from the physical classroom to a digital one did not appear to receive any sincere urgency until the pandemic made it impossible to continue with traditional classes in almost every country in the world. This is perhaps one of the good things to come out of the Covid-19 experience as the pandemic has encouraged teachers and students to look beyond the four walls and venture into the digital world; a world that boasts itself over a countless reach of ideas, people, and skills.

Prior to the crisis, Google Classroom was considered a useful educational tool by only a few educators; but today it is being readily embraced by all education stakeholders and has shown all such stakeholders what they’ve been missing as an online platform that possesses the potential to redefine the invisible barriers of a classroom paradigm and bring learners closer to each other and their end goal.

1. What is Google Classroom?

As an instrument, Google Study hall is a free electronic learning stage created by Google, where instructors can run a class on the web, make educational programs, and offer tasks to understudies in a paperless manner. The stage works on instructor understudy joint effort by utilizing the different G Suite administrations like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

2. Who can use Google Classroom?

Essentially, anybody with a Google record can utilize Google Classroom. Associations utilizing G Suite for Training, non-benefits, schools, independent instructors, home-schoolers, directors, and families are for the most part qualified to utilize Google Classroom. Instructors and students are essential clients and can get to Google Classroom through a school account.

3. What are the major highlights of Google Classroom?

Tasks: Educators can make tasks utilizing learning material like YouTube videos, Google Surveys, or PDFs from the drive. They can assign tasks to all students or individual students. Instructors can either promptly give out the task or programme the task for a specific day.

Adjustable Evaluating Framework: Instructors can pick a reviewing framework and make grade classifications. On the off chance that instructors need the general evaluations to be open to students, they can browse any of the accompanying frameworks:

  1. Total Focuses Evaluating: Gap complete focus understudies acquire by the most extreme focuses conceivable.
  2. Weighted by Class Reviewing: The evaluation classifications are allotted a weight. Then, at that point, the normal scores of each evaluation classification are determined and duplicated with the evaluation weight to give you the general evaluation out of 100%.
  3. No Overall Evaluation: If the educators decide to not review the understudies.

Virtual Discussions: The tool also allows teachers to invite students to answer question-driven conversations and equally react to their classmate's contributions via the platform. Such contributions on Google docs allow a two-way discussion, as it affords teachers the opportunity to give feedback to students; which is actually a great way to ensure that students are constantly engaged, especially in such situations when you can’t see them. In addition, teachers can manage the discussions by choosing to mute some individual students from posting or commenting.

Announcements: Teachers can update students through announcements. Such announcements are posts with no assignments; they’re simply notices for students regarding deadlines, tests, or any classwork. The platform also enables teachers to schedule announcements and as well as control replies and comments made on the announcement post.

Live Classes: Live Classes is one of the latest features added to the app, which enables teachers to hold a real-time class virtually through Google Meet. Teachers can have as many as 250 people on a Hangout call with a viewership that permits as many as 1, 000,000 viewers who can live-stream. Additionally, these virtual classes or lectures can also be recorded to enable those students who missed the live session to be able to catch up by watching them later.

4. How can you set it up?

Google Classroom can be set up by anyone who already has a personal Gmail account by following these steps:
Step 1: Open your Gmail account.
Step 2: Go to the waffle on the top right corner, click on it to reveal all the G Suite applications it contains, and then click on Classroom.
Step 3: Next, you’ll have to enter a dashboard; click the PLUS (+) sign on the top right and choose ‘Create Class’. But if you’re a student, you can click on ‘Join a Class’ and enter the code given by your teacher.
Step 4: The final step will be to enter the relevant details- class name, subject, room, etc. give a class name that your students can easily identify with; for instance, Miss Hastings’ English Class.

5. What devices does Google Classroom support?

Google Classroom can be operated on Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari, and equally available on Android and Apple iOS mobile devices.

6. Is it possible for independent educators who are not affiliated with a school sign up?

Yes, they can as long as they have a Gmail account.

7. Is Google Classroom different when used by a school account as compared to a personal account?

There are some features and applications under G Suite for Education that users with school accounts have access to which are not readily available to users with personal accounts. Some of such features are:

  • Summaries of student work to guardians by Email.
  • Total administration of user accounts
  • Additional privacy and security settings

8. Must students have a Google account to access Google Classroom?

No, students do not need to have a Google before they can access Google Classroom as they are enabled to access it through their school’s G suite education account.

9. How is a relationship between Google Classroom and G Suite for Education?

Like Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Google Classroom is a product of G Suite for Education. Since it is a component of G Suite for Education, a user of Google Classroom can also access other products or applications on Google like Docs, Sheets, etc. This allows both teachers and independent instructors to communicate and collaborate better with their students.

10. Is it possible for me to access Google Classroom if my Gmail is disabled from G Suite for Education?

Yes, it is possible to access the Google Classroom without first enabling Gmail to access G Suite for Education. However, if Gmail has not been enabled by the administrator, the teacher or student might not get email notifications.

The Google Classroom app is revolutionary and is likely to become a mainstay of the educational teaching-learning process. With the pandemic and socio-cultural changes forcing nations to redefine the ideology of education; tools like the Google Classroom app will become even more relevant. It is therefore obvious, that understanding how it works and how useful it can be to teachers and students, as well as educational administrators, will make it key to the new digital education system of the 21st Century.

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