Google Classroom – Page 2

Day 5 of Google 2018: Google Classroom Commenting/Grading

Screen Shot 2018-12-04 at 8.46.28 PM.png Today’s topic pertains to Google Classroom and the new grading feature this school year. Now when you open up a file that is shared through Google Classroom, a new grading window shows up. There are some great benefits to this new feature this year.

Can add generic comments in a comment bank so that you don’t have to type the same thing over and over when assessing work.
Less opening and closing of windows as all student work can be viewed from the drop down menu on the top left corner. You are able to quickly see where students are at from this drop down as well (missing, turn in, assigned).

Screen Shot 2018-12-13 at 8.29.29 AM

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Day 7 of Google: Google Classroom – Creating to Accessing Student Work

On the seventh day of Google, we will take a look at Google Classroom.

To think that teachers once collected student work via a shared document embedded in an email every time they completed something OR by filling out a Google Form to submit work. Google Classroom has been great for being that one central place where students and teachers can easily find necessary documents. But, do you know the following…

Students ‘Turning In’ Work
You probably already know that there are two ways that you can create an assignment for students to complete through Google Classroom:

1. Provide a ‘template’ for student and choosing the ‘Make a Copy for Each Student’ – this method is great so that student get their own electronic copy of a task you want them to complete. This method will automatically name the file for them (with their name in the title). Google Classroom will also provide a ‘Turn In’ button on the top right corner of the Google Doc, Slide, etc for when the student is ready to turn in the assignment. Another great piece to this is that you as the teacher can view what the student is doing with their assignment prior to the due date. This can be very beneficial for situations where you want to provide feedback prior to a due date.

2. Provide the assignment for the students but do not provide a template. At times, this makes sense to not give a template as you want students to use their own creativity/thought process to demonstrate competency. What many students will do is go to Google Drive and create a new file from there. Then when the assignment is due, they will open up Google Classroom and add their Google Document to the assignment.

BUT…did you know that there is a more efficient way to make this work? If a student is turning in an assignment to you and the final product will be a Google product, have the students create the file right from the assignment. The advantage to this process is that you as the teacher will be able to see what the student is doing with their work throughout their thought process. Also, a ‘Turn In’ button will then show up in the document. In other words, a similar situation to the one listed in the first example.

Accessing Student Work
Did you know you can access all student work for a particular assignment from a folder in your Google Drive.

Open up the assignment you want to access student work
Click on the assignment folder icon
Google Drive will open up in a new tab – right in the folder of student work

For some staff, they actually prefer seeing the assignments in this view.

To Do List
Don’t forget that Google Classroom can also let you know what you have left on your To Do List in regards to reviewing work (if you are a teacher) and completing tasks (if you are a student). If you are a teacher for some classrooms and a student for others, you will have two To Do Lists.

To find your To Do List, select the ‘Hamburger’ Icon on the top left corner. Then scroll down until you find your To Do List. This can be helpful in letting you know what has to be reviewed from all of your classes in one screen. As make sure that your students are aware that this feature exists for them with the tasks that they have to complete.

And that is my Spiel…

Google Classroom: Return Assignments, Archive Classes & Reuse Posts

Here are some good reminders to Google Classroom, especially at the end of a semester.

Returning Assignments to Students
Since we do not use Google Classroom for reporting out grades to students, we can easily forget to return assignments to students. As a good practice, once assessment has been completed, assignments should be returned to students.

Step 1: Select the assignment you want to return to students

Step 2: Select which students you want to return the assignment to. If you want the assignment to be returned to all students, select the checkbox at the top left. Then select the Return button.

NOTE: If there are only 1 or 2 students you don’t want to return the assignment to, select the checkbox at the top left and unselect the few students that should not get the assignment back.

Archiving Classes No Longer In Session
If you no longer need the class because the semester or the year has ended, you can archive the class. This not only will hide the classes you no longer need but it will also save all of the assignments you have pushed out to your students.

Step 1: Make sure assignments have been returned to students that were sent through Google Classroom.

Step 2: From the main classes view (once you first get into Google Classroom) select the three dot button on the top right corner of the class and select Archive.

You will get a message asking you if you are sure you want to archive a class. This class will not be deleted, instead it will show up in the Archive section of Google Classroom.

My class called “Demo class #2” is now located in the Archived Classes section. (Notice that there is a fence like look to the header of the class.)
NOTE: You do have the option to move this class out of the archived section if you had a need for it by clicking on the three dot menu.

You also still have access to the drive documents that were shared in the class by clicking on the Drive Folder icon on the bottom right corner of the class.

Reuse Posts For Future Classes
Don’t forget that Google implemented a great feature with being able to reuse posts from previous classes. Don’t worry about the date and time of the original assignment you pushed out the previous semester or year, as you are able to customize the new post. But why reinvent the entire assignment if nothing major has changed. Below are the steps to Reuse a post.

Step 1: Open up the class that you want to add a post to. Then click on the plus sign at the bottom right corner and select Reuse post.

Step 2: Then select the class that the original post is located and hit the select button.

Step 3: Locate the actual post you want to reuse. You will notice on the bottom left corner you have the option to have Google Classroom create new copies of the attachments. Then hit the reuse button.

Step 4: Feel free to make any changes you want to make to the assignment post. You can add new attachments, delete original attachments, assign new descriptions, etc.

Of course, if you have any questions with using Google Classroom, don’t be afraid to ask!

Have You Shared with Classroom Yet?

Google has created a Chrome extension that allows teachers to be able to share information easily to students that are enrolled in their Google Classroom without having to log into classroom.google.com. The name of the extension is Share to Classroom.

In order to effectively use the power behind this extension, your students will need to have this extension in their account as well. (This Chrome Extension will be pushed to all BHS students in the very near future as this will work nicely with chromebooks.)

What You Can Do…

Push a website, article, video, document to students right on the spot without making an assignment/announcement
Push an assignment to the class
Make an announcement to the class

Push Content

I am a big fan of this feature. Everyday, we make spontaneous decisions based on where discussions are leading us. This extension helps support information you want students to access right on the spot. By using this chrome extension, you can send all students who have their device open a link to a website, video, article etc. This is similar to Google Tone (another Chrome extension) but I like how this is tied to a Google Classroom so that only those students in the class get the pushed site – not other students.

For instructions and demonstration on how this works: