Welcome to Tech Tip Tuesday Episode Nine. I’m Pam Coleman, Instructional Technology coach for Bradley County Schools, and I am looking forward to our time together today.
If you are a new listener to Tech Tip Tuesday, we would love to hear from you. Please visit our website at bcstechnology.org and let us know how we can help you today!
In this episode, I’ll be discussing:
- Benefits of creating a Google Classroom
- Features within Classroom
- What if I have limited access to devices – should I still use Classroom?
Join the Conversation
Google Classroom is a part of the G Suite for Education and an excellent way for you to connect with your students. It was created with accessibility in mind to help every student learn, be inspired, and achieve their full potential. Classroom focuses on three key areas: pose questions, make announcements and set up assignments.
Here are six reasons why Classroom may be a great resource for you and your students:
- Student and parent accessibility – simply sign into the Gmail account and navigate to Classroom – student can see assignments and announcements and parents can see what their child is working on and provides support.
- Exposure to online learning – students can have access to assignment or modules and digital resources regardless of where they are. The absentee student doesn’t fall behind in their course work since they can receive the teacher’s notes and resources through Classroom.
- Differentiated Instruction for all students – once a class joins your Classroom, you can cherry-pick students for groups or differentiated instructions. Lessons can be tailored to meet the needs of individual students. For example, students with higher Lexile levels could be given the same reading passage in ReadWorks with the Lexile level adjusted to their level, providing them with a more challenging read.
- Go paperless – this is both environmentally and economically sound BUT moreover, as a teacher, you’ll never hear “the dog ate my paper” or “I left my assignment at home” again.
- Prepare in advance – planning for a substitute teacher just got much simpler – with Classroom, the teacher can build the assignment or multiple assignment and save them as a draft or schedule them for a future date. This means that when you are absent, the students have quality and meaningful lessons that are tailored for them.
- Teachers can track students’ progress and have documentation of work completed or incomplete.
Features Within Classroom:
- Co-teach with another teacher
- Sharing an assignment with one or all of my Classes
- Organization – all assignments are stored in the student’s Drive as well at the teacher’s Drive.
- Google organizes all assignments in a folder by Classroom and assignment. When students submit their work, their name is attached to the assignment – this means no more papers without student names
Do you have limited devices in your Classroom?
Regardless of a student’s access to a laptop, desktop, or Chromebook at school; students can use their personal devices or the family’s device at home. For cell phones, the Classroom app is available for iOS and Android devices.
Resources:
Check out my personal Google Classroom Site website and Google for Education Teacher Center
Extension of the week:
Share to Classroom Extension
Designed to save time in the classroom. “The extension allows you to push web pages to any of your Classroom classes, so they open instantly on your students’ computers. You can also post announcements, create assignments, or save web pages to post to Classroom later.” While pursuing the Internet, you come upon a news story that is applicable to today’s lesson, without leaving the webpage you can push the web address to students, create an assignment or announcement or ask a question. Share to Classroom Extension works seamlessly with Classroom.
You can also follow me on Twitter
- @pamcolemanbcs
Or the BCS technology department
- @technologybcs
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