What to do with your old Google Classroom. A few quick tips. Plus a joke.

So you see your classroom from last school year and wonder what you can do with it. There are a few things and I will keep it brief.

If you select the three dots in the upper right of the classroom in question you will see the options to:

If you choose to archive it, the class will then be moved to the archived section (under the hamburger - the three lines in the upper left of your screen). This class can always be "brought back to life" if you desire.

If you copy it, please note that what it does it makes a copy of everything in the Classroom (just not the students). Every document, video, including your directions, course syllabus, and other 'view only' documents you provided to your students in their assignments. However, they are in draft form so you can use as you see fit.

Personally, with a new school year, I like archiving the class and starting from scratch - but that is up to you.

One bit of advice I have when starting your class is to make your stream be streamlined by removing the notifications of classwork being posted in the stream. I like the stream being clean ad only for announcements you make. Remind the students to always go into their classwork to see what their classwork is. Of course these are just my 2 cents. 

Reminds me of Steven Wright's joke: 

"Why is it, "A penny for your thoughts,"

But, “you have to put your two cents in?" Somebody's making a penny. 😀

Embedded below is a 2 minute and 8 second YouTube tutorial I created.

Take care,

Brad

New Google Classroom feature - transfer class ownership

If you would like to transfer ownership of a particular classroom, Google Classroom makes it very easy.

Enter into the About section, select the three dots next to your fellow teacher and then select transfer ownership and will see a complete view of past student work and resources in Drive

What is nice about this is that the new teacher will not need to recreate the class.

Embedded below is a GIF followed by a 22 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,
Brad

New Google Classroom feature - reorder classes as you want to see them

A nice new feature in Google Classroom allows you to easily move your classes around easily - just click and drag. This is a nice feature available to students as well.

Embedded below is a GIF followed by a 19 second YouTube tutorial.

Take care,
Brad

Great news - Follow-up post on Google Classroom - create classes with personal account

Follow-up post from March 16th - Google Classroom is now available for personal accounts to join classes

 If you are interested in creating your own classroom in Google Classroom  you will need to click on the + in the upper right corner and select Create Class.

At this time you will then need to submit a request to Google (you will be prompted).

It took less than 24 hours and I received confirmation in an e-mail.

When you go create your first class you will have to check that you read and understand that you will not be using Google Classroom at a school with students.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

Brad

Google Classroom - send post to multiple classes at once

One of the great features in Google Classroom is the fact that you can create an announcement, post, etc. and send it to multiple classes that you have created.

Embedded below is a 51 second YouTube video on how to do this followed by step-by-step directions beneath the video.

When you have the post the way you would like it - simply select the class next to where it says For (under announcement)

Then, select the classes that you would like to share the same information with.

You can also send specific posts to individuals in an individual class by selecting All Students and then selecting the specific students you want to send the post to.

Any questions, let me know!
Brad

Google Classroom Update - send assignments to specific individual(s) & find out when a student sends in an assignment late

If you would like to assign something to a particular student (or students) you can now do that very easily in Google Classroom. For Google's Help webpage for Google Classroom - please click here.

Once you have clicked on the + to create an announcement, assignment, or question - to the right of what class you are in - you will see where it says all students. Select the all students and you will see where the default is all students. You can then click where it says all students and then select the specific student (students) you would like to send it to.

The 2nd new feature is an e-mail notification when a student submits work past the due date. To make sure this is active in your Google Classroom...

1. Select the "hamburger" - the three lines at the top left of your home classroom page.

2. Select settings at the bottom.

3. Make sure the box is checked for email notifications.

As always, any questions please let me know!
Brad

Google Classroom now lets you share with families

Starting today Google Classroom  now allows parents/guardians to subscribe to a daily or weekly summary of activities in your Google Classroom.

After reading about it - here are some key points
- The school's teachers and administrators must choose who can invite parents and guardians.
- The families only need to be invited once regardless of # of teachers the student has (important in later grades).
- Teachers have the option to send e-mails from Google Classroom to the families.

For the link from Google - click here.
You can also click here to see what is new.

Take care,
Brad

QR code and Google Classroom polling feature

Hello everyone,

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog. I will do my best to keep my posts short and to the point.

In this post you will find information that you can hopefully use in your classroom - QR codes (how to create, store, and organize) as well as a new feature in Google Classroom - polling!

1. Click here to access the information on QR codes (along with some helpful short videos)
** The link will ask you to make a copy into your google drive.

2. Click here to access the 45 second video tutorial on the new polling feature in Google Classroom.

Take care,
Brad