If you read my 1st post on Google Classroom not that long ago this will be a useful update. For those who didn’t please check it out. We have been using it for a few days in school now and initial views from students have been overwhelmingly positive. Apart from question – when will there be an app for it? There isn’t one for Apple but I haven’t checked other platforms yet.
I have been extremely impressed with Google and how quickly they are responding to things, this is brilliant and if it continues in 6 months Classroom may look and act completely different.
For example @kimberleyfcroft messaged me a day or so afterwards to say that one of the comments I made about grading had already changed in the few days since writing the post.
“You can change the marks to be out of whatever you like by re-typing over the top. Is a continuous feedback stream possible? It would also be useful to add a marking rubric/feedback for the whole class post-hand-in.”
Another changed that has happened literally in the last few days is that they have changed the terminology for when students submit work from ‘turn in’ to now ‘hand in’ which is what we requested in the last week. I wonder if this is different depending where you are setting Google Classroom up? Is the U.S is it still ‘turn in’ I would be interested to hear from any american teachers about this?
Some other interesting links:
If you haven’t already seen it this site has some great Google Classroom tutorials
Also this is an interesting online article about Classroom
What are your thoughts on this? Are you using it? How are you finding it?
I’ve started using it and am seeing huge benefits from it. I’ve seen students use it to access self-reviews on which I can post comments and responses. I’ve used it to deliver pre-reading tasks which mean we can make rapid and spectacular progress on more advanced concepts in lessons. I’ve shared documents on which students can post responses to complex questions and then share them with others in class discussion. That’s after a week and a bit.
My concerns ….
I’d like to be able to add a marking rubric/feedback as suggested by Kim above,
It feels a bit more like “Google Homework” than “Google Classroom” at the moment: a message board on which to post tasks rather than something we use in class in order to break down physical and temporal limits of the classroom. This is partly because …..
Students are reporting back to me that the Classroom environment works better on some devices than others. I tend to believe them. This in turn suggests ….
The point which the npr article linked above makes about the digital divide is troubling. As someone who chooses not to carry a device himself and whose children do not carry one, I worry about how to make this development fair and equitable.
Thanks for the comments Simon – also agree with several of your suggestions for improvement, make sure you keep posting any ideas through submitting feedback to Google they are listening. I have submitted your comment to them. What do you think about the term digital natives?