Skip to main content

The New Google Classroom

Google Classroom is getting an update with a new look and features!


While Google Classroom is only 4 years old, we have seen lots of changes and improvements over those 4 years! But this year, Google has made some big of the biggest changes ever to Google Classroom - all based upon user feedback. 

You will now see three main tabs: Stream, Classwork, and People.

Teacher View

Stream
The Stream tab is where educators create and post announcements. It also shows due dates for upcoming work and when new assignments are posted. It's a great place to host discussions and help students develop their online communication skills.

Classwork
Classwork is the real meat of Google Classroom. This is where educators will create and post student assignments and questions. One of the big changes is adding Topics to organize and identify assignments - you will definitely want to use Topics to organize Classwork. All assignments created and labeled with a Topic will be organized together. You could easily create topics for specific curriculum units, concepts, by quarter, and so on. Users can also access the class Google Drive folder and Google Calendar in Classwork.



People
The people tab will show all of the "people" associated with the class: teachers, students, and parents if you have enabled Guardian Emails. People is where you can invite other teachers and also show the class code to share with students. (this class doesn't have any students yet!)


A couple more changes:
About: The About tab is now a button on the right hand side of the classroom window. Right now, it only gives you the ability to view the Class Code to share with students. There are also some new themes to choose from.
 
Settings: Google Classroom now has a Settings button in the top right. In Settings you can edit the class name, manage how students post and comment, show deleted items, and turn on Guardian Emails.

You can also access the class code in Settings. Reminder: Creighton School District students join classes via the Class Code!

When students submit their work, there are also additional grading options. Teachers can easily switch between student assignments while grading and add feedback comments into a bank to use later.

Student View

Stream

Classwork

 People

Google has just completed testing of the new Google Classroom and will begin releasing it sometime in the next couple of weeks. However, you may see some of the changes appear sooner, such as the Stream and People tabs.

For more information about the new Google Classroom, check out the Google blog: 

Enjoy!

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Digital Science Fair Projects

At the end of the year, many of our schools hold school wide science fairs. Students plan Science fair project tri-fold display board and implement projects and then present the process and resulting data on tri-fold display boards much like this. One class decided to go green and do away with using display boards. They conducted their experiments and recorded the data but rather than create paper reports they used their iPads. Project Data Graphs The students took pictures and video and created graphs and other visual representations and imported those into the Explain Everything app. During the science fair, students brought their iPads to the school's multipurpose room and presented their projects to attendees right from the iPads. In addition to using digital tools, these students are also developing their listening, speaking, and presentation skills - all vital to college and career readiness.
Post a Comment
Read more

Flipped Training 2013, Day Four

Day Four: Putting It All Together Day 4 was focused on two things: creating videos and lesson planning. Two very important topics for flipped learning! Video Creation: While we encourage our teachers to create their own flipped learning videos, we also know that there are some great pre-made video resources available. We explored sites such as Khan Academy , Math Train , and Sophia . To help teachers understand why we encourage them to create their own videos, we showed the Katie Gimbar video entitled " Why It Has to Be Me ". Katie has been flipping for some time and has a great series of videos and we used several throughout the training. You can access them here . Teacher created videos help students feel more like they are right there with the teacher and extends their in class relationship. While video creating can get pretty complicated, we encourage teachers to just do "one take" videos without retakes or a lot of editing. If you m...
Post a Comment
Read more

T. A. G. Strategy

We want our students to reflect on their own work but also to be able to give effective feedback to each other. This is true for writing, conversations, or digital work. It's tough for us as adults and even more difficult for our students - no matter the grade level. As we have started using Seesaw ( https://web.seesaw.me/ ) and its student Comment feature, I've seen lots of "I like ..." and "That's cool" comments. Not very meaningful. I recently came across this simple strategy called T.A.G: Tell, Ask, Give. An easy to remember acronym and a good way to get students started in making effective comments.  I've seen several variations but like these descriptors for the acronym: Tell - something you learned or was meaningful ("like" if they are specific about what they like) Ask - a question Give - a compliment or recommendation (depending upon the purpose for the comment) Download a pdf here . Here are some additional ...
Post a Comment
Read more