Posted: Thursday, April 7, 2016

  

Posted by Brittney Fraser, Google Classroom Software Engineer

Google Classroom helps teachers and students communicate and learn together. Today we’re making the learning process even easier with a new polling feature that helps teachers quickly check for understanding, gather feedback or gauge interest. Here are four creative ways teachers are using polling in their classrooms.

1. Post exit tickets Cindy Nordstrom, a teacher at Oak Ridge Elementary School in Minnesota, uses polling to make sure students understand the main points of a lesson. She explains, “We were studying poetry and talking about novels in verse. Since this was the first time that most students had encountered the format, I wanted to see if they knew what novels in verse were. I created this poll as an exit slip for the class. I could click on students’ answers and see their names associated with their response. This helped me get an at-a-glance view of who understood the concept and who didn't.”

2. Help students self-monitor Mike Fricano, a high school teacher at the Iolani School in Hawaii, teaches a makerspace course called Make It 101. He polled his class to see if his students were on track for meeting a project deadline. Fricano says, “When I sent out this poll, I could see who was on schedule and who was at risk of missing their deadline. For those who reported being "way off track,"I met with them to help them get back on schedule. I will continue to use multiple choice polls like this to check in on deadlines and gauge interest in future projects.”

3. Guide student discussionsHeidi Bernasconi, a teacher at Clarkstown North High School in New York, used polling to help guide a career discussion with her students. “I wanted to discuss skills and qualities employers are looking for from graduates,” Bernasconi says. “I kicked off the discussion with a poll, which led us to review a Forbes article. I allowed students to see each others’ posts so they could get a feel for what others felt was important. ”

4. Get feedback on your lesson from students Allyson Greene of Barrett Elementary School in Virginia uses polls to understand what her students liked best about a lesson. She says, “We were doing a unit on electricity and forces and I wanted to see which part of the unit was the most fun for them. Setting up a poll was very easy.”

We also recently updated our Android and iOS mobile apps. Teachers can now draft any type of post or reuse existing posts from any of their classes. Android users also now have a notifications center, where they can see what’s new in their classes. Plus, Android teachers can post to multiple classes.  

A year ago, we launched Classroom to save teachers and students time and make it easier to keep classwork organized. Today we’re launching a Share to Classroom Chrome extension to make it easy for teachers to share a website with the entire class at the same time—no matter what kind of laptop students have. Now the whole class can head to a web page together, without losing precious minutes and focus to typos.

  

Rock this school year with Google Docs and Classroom. Your first assignment? Try these new features, which are rolling out today.

Posted: Wednesday, September 2, 2015

Posted by Catherine Davis, former 4th grade teacher and Director of Academic Technology at Pilgrim School

Editor's note:Today we’re launching a new Chrome extension, Share to Classroom, which solves a big pain point for teachers: getting all students to the same website during class. The Share to Classroom extension works on any laptop, including Chromebooks, Macs and PCs. Catherine Davis, former 4th grade teacher and Director of Academic Technology at Pilgrim School, piloted the Classroom extension with Mrs. Shorkey’s 3rd grade class, and here she describes her experience using this new extension and the impact on her students.


Sharing a website with my students is a great way to get them engaged. When we studied South America, I shared a video of Tierra del Fuego, and my students were able to view the coast, hear the wind and see the waves soar. But getting a class full of 4th graders on the same web page is a huge challenge. I typically write the URL on the board, then walk around to help each student who misses a capital or underscore or backslash. My students get frustrated, I get frustrated, and before I know it 10 minutes of precious teaching time is lost.

So I was thrilled to pilot the Share to Classroom extension. With the extension I can open a website and “push” it to my Google Classroom students, so the page opens immediately on all their devices. Our 3rd graders gasped when we tried it – the webpage instantaneously popped up on all of their screens. 

The new extension lets me engage my students and help them drive their own learning on 1:1 devices at our school. When our 3rd graders were studying Native American culture, I pushed a website to the class so they could research traditional clothing and food. The students aren’t locked to the page I send, and one student navigated from there to an even better site. With the Classroom extension, the student was able to push the new site to me, and I reviewed and pushed to the entire class. She had a boost of confidence when her discovery drove class discussion.

Using the extension also lets me think on my feet. When discussing pioneers, a brave student raised his hand and asked “What’s a stage coach?” I realized my students hadn’t been exposed to the term. I immediately pulled up a definition and video and pushed it to the class. I also saved the webpage as a draft to post to my other Classroom students later. I could have projected on a screen, but the intimacy of having the webpage on each device allows students to explore on their own, hear clearly and watch repeatedly. It also levels the playing field for ELL and students of different backgrounds so everyone starts literally on the same page.

 

As teachers, we never feel we have enough time to do everything we want with our students. The new Share to Classroom extension gives us back those few minutes it takes to get students to the same place and makes learning about investigating, not about navigating.

*Note: Google Apps admins can install the extension for their entire domain so that it’s easiest for teachers and students to get started. Teachers and students both need the extension in order to push web pages to each other.

This week I was the keynote for the pre-conference event at ISTE 2016. Here are the resource slides for my presentation on Google Classroom.

In Google Classroom when you attach a Google Document to a lesson set where every student gets a copy the student does not see the thumbnail image of the document. The student needs to click on “OPEN” to view the attached Google Document.

Attach an Image

I have created an image that I attach with each Google Classroom assignment to remind students to click on “OPEN” and either “MARK AS DONE” or “TURN IN.” I have saved the images in my Google Drive so I simply click on the Google Drive logo when attaching files in a Google Classroom assignment and insert the image.

When building my lesson set I can see that the assignment is attached. However, since I designated the document to “Make a copy for each student” it is not visible in the student view of the lesson set. Attaching an image allows me to display a placeholder in my lesson set for that item.

The advantage to including the image is for the assignment part of the lesson set to be visible in the stream. When the attachment is the only element of the lesson set the student only sees the title, directions and an open icon. There is no indicator in the stream that a document is attached.

The OPEN button could contain a Google Doc for the student or it could simply have the “MARK AS DONE” button. Students have no way of knowing that there is a document for them to view.

Student View

When attaching multiple links, Google Docs, or videos to your Google Classroom lesson set the assignment attachment is not visible to the students. The image helps the student to realize there is a document for them to access.

Student View

When I created this lesson set it had 4 items attached. The student only sees of the attachments. By clicking “OPEN” the student can see 2 more attachments.

Building a Lesson Set

When creating an assignment in Google Classroom I carefully consider the order of my attachments. The order builds the flow of the lesson set.

I also want to differentiate my assignments by including multiple ways to address the content and give choices for demonstrating the learning objective. The document I attach as “Make a copy for each student” may end up in the middle of the lesson set. The image as a placeholder can help maintain the flow of the lesson set so that each element is represented in the stream.

Make a copy for each student

Each time you attach a file in Google Classroom as “Make a copy for each student” also insert an image to indicate to students to click on “OPEN” and “TURN IN” the assignment.

No Attachments

If your Google Classroom assignment does not contain any template documents the open button allows the student to “MARK AS DONE.” For any assignment that does not have any template attachments include an image to indicate students should click on “OPEN” and “MARK AS DONE.”

Generic Images

I have made some generic images to use as placeholders for my assignments. Feel free to utilize these in your Google Classroom lesson sets. Click on the links and choose to download the image by clicking on the download icon in the toolbar.

Click Here for the “Remember to Click Open and Turn In” image.

Click Here for the “Remember to Click Open and Mark As Done” image.

Custom Image

You may want to create a custom image using Google Draw that contains the document title and a note to click on “OPEN” to view the document. Click Here for a template.

Example:

In this example the title of the assignment is part of the image.

Newsela syncs with Google Classroom class rosters. Updating Google Classroom automatically will update the Newsela account roster.

In #googleclassroom assessment screen click on “Student Work’ at the top to get back to tiles #aliceinarkansas

Infographic Featuring 10 Things Every Teacher Should Know About #GoogleClassroom http://buff.ly/1UDM1cc #EdTech

Reply

 

Hi +Antonio Manno! From within any assignment, you can click on the student work tab, then on the setting icon (top right) and follow this by selecting to copy to Google Sheets or download as CSV. Hope this helps! 

Help  -  1:27 PM

I have a question about notifications in Classroom. Do students receive an email notification when new posts are added to the Stream (provided they didn't go into their settings and turn notifications off & provided they have email)? What about replies to posts by others? 
Answer ...

Michael Fricano II2:01 PM

Students will receive an email or mobile notification when new posts are shared in the Stream if those notifications are turned on.

I tested this out, and students don't receive email notifications for replies to posts.

Check out this video for a complete break down of notifications. The content is out of date, but notifications are the same.
https://goo.gl/r87eIr

If you are entering scores in Google Classsroom and in your gradebook this causes you to have to do double entry and thus additional work. If you update a score it would require that you update it in two places. If there is a discrepancy between the score in Classroom and the score in the gradebook this potentially causes confusion for the student and parent.

Zero or One

Instead of entering grades in Google Classroom I only enter grades into my gradebook. If I make the assignment point value 1 point then I can essentially use the score in Classroom as a check. A one means I looked at the document. A zero or blank means I have not. If students have a score of 1 this signals to the student that the grade is available in the online gradebook.

Side by Side

When grading work that is in Google Classroom I will have side by side windows of Classroom and the gradebook. Instead of entering the students score into Classroom, I place the score in my gradebook. Since the windows are side by side it is almost as easy to put the score in the gradebook as it is to put it in Classroom, so why not put it where it counts.

Right, you have to remember to make the setting when you first create the assignment, "make a copy for each student." If you try to edit the assignment, you can't change that setting. Google should fix. In the meantime, I coach teachers to attach the file first, then type the assignment title. It is just a habit to practice. 

Discussion  -  2:13 AM

Fred Delventhal3:41 AM
Hi there,
No. Students can still access the class and will still have all of their files in Google Drive.
See this page for students in the Google Classroom Help Center for more information.
https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6149820?hl=en&ref_topic=6163290

Thomas Hammerlund7:47 AM
  So the class needs to be deleted? 

Fred Delventhal7:51 AM
  The students will still retain ownership of their work even if deleted.
So that teachers can reuse assignments from the class, I would just unenroll students and then archive the class.
I have included in this post a page from the Help Center with more information.
https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6069576?hl=en&ref_topic=6163300

3:13pm · 10 Aug 2016 · TweetDeck
Lesa Haney @lesahaney

@alicekeeler I swear you read my mind.  I looked over my classrooms for last two years and I am guilty of long directions. Way too long!!!

Linda Fisher @fisher605

@alicekeeler great idea!

@alicekeeler
Any documents you put in the class folder in #GoogleClassroom can NOT be seen by students. #GoogleEDU pic.twitter.com/tqq9zeOHy7

4:26pm · 9 Aug 2016 · OS X

Help  -  9:54 AM

 

Is there a way for parents to sign up for updates with a code? At the HS level, I have over 100 students, meaning I would have to enter over 200 addresses. I thought I would be able to use our SMS that allows for a mass email to all guardians in a class to send a note home with a link and a code. I'm not seeing a way to do that. Am I missing something?

Also, on the parent side....I will encouraging weekly, not daily updates. Our students could potentially have 5-6 Google Classroom teachers so that would be a lot of daily emails. 

Paula MacMillin10:04 AM

  I am also looking for an easier way to add parent contact information. As for the daily updates, I believe there is a drop down for parents to select if they would like daily or weekly emails. 

Autumn Howell10:35 AM+1
2
1  I would click on the ? at the bottom of Google Classroom and submit your feedback. But at this time, the only way I've found to be able to get parents invited is by individually entering their email address. 

Jennifer Roberge10:41 AM

  Batch invite can be done by your domain admins. 

Pauline Clark11:12 AM

  Parents get one email that shows the digest for all of that student's enrolled classes in the one email. 

Niilo Alhovaara11:18 AM

  Check out #GAM  - Google Apps Manager will apparently be a able to handle much of what is mentioned here. It's not for those faint of heart (like me, I'm afraid) though: #GAM  is a (Win) command line utility. 

Pauline Clark11:24 AM

 1Reply Also faint of heart here...but good news is that once guardians are invited by one teacher, they will be associated with the student in all of the other Google Classes they are enrolled in. Parent Email Sign-up Example: So, for example, all of our 8th Grade Teachers will invite the guardians of students in their 2nd Period class. This will attach a guardian to all of our 8th grade students with each teacher having to enter only 25 - 30 names max. 

Thanks to +Fred Delventhal Yesterday 12:03 PM
We recommend grade level teams or departments create an empty class void of students. Add the other teachers as co-teachers. Whenever a teacher posts a lesson, also post to the team class. This allows others to reuse that post in their own classes.