Google recently changed what parents and guardians can now see if Google Classroom Guardian summaries are turned on through Google Classroom. In the past, parents were only able to receive an email that indicates what assignments were pushed out with whatever description was added to the assignment. Now in the new view, parents are able to actually see most files that are shared in the classroom page. Parents have the ability to select a class and see the classworks page in view only mode – based on their students profile and what is shared with them. The parent is able to actually click on files to get a greater understanding of the assignments if they find value in that. Google is doing a better job now of mimicking what students years ago were able to do when a parent said “show me what you are working on in class – and the student would take out the papers that were handed out”.
In an effort to help teachers in my school, I created two different videos walking them through what this new process looks like on the parent/guardian side.
The first video focuses on sharing Google Docs with students and testing out the different permission settings of files to include what it looks like if ‘make a copy for each student’ is used for an assignment.
The second video focuses on sharing out Google Forms as well as Canva resources. Teachers can see the difference between locked mode and non-locked mode of a google form, as well as different ways to share out a Canva product.
For those that need a reminder, a teacher can activate Guardian Email Summaries through the settings gear menu on the top right corner of any Google Classroom. If parents email is not already tied to the student, one teacher in the school domain must invite the parent. Once this is done once, no other teacher needs to invite the parent (who is using guardian summaries).
If you have any questions, feel free to reach out.
And that is my Spiel…
Craig M Sheil 