Community reviews for Google Classroom

Have you ever heard of a paperless Classroom? You can go along way to making that a reality with Google Classroom. You can create assignments, provide and link to reading materials, video and other resources right from the Teachers console. Even if you are going to be out of the classroom, you can provide a meaningful lesson for your students. You can collect and grade their responses or their submissions of course work directly from the Google Classroom. You can interact with your students both publicly (entire classroom population) or individually using the messaging feature of the classroom. As long at the students have access to PC’s or smart devices, they can access their classrooms, and complete their work.

Google Classroom is an incredible resource for schools, teachers, students, and even much larger institutions. It is simple to use, easy to navigate, and fairly straight forward. I also find that it is not as intimidating to people that are not as comfortable with using technology too. Also, if there are things that users find "glitchy" as they use it, anyone can send feedback to the Google Classroom team, and those changes to show themselves as made over time. Overall, it's a really great product that, I imagine, will only continue to improve and transform the way that we approach education with technology tools.

As a convert from another LMS, I must say that Google Classroom is hands down the best LMS out there for GAFE schools. The ease of integration cannot be beat with Google. What I like most about Google Classroom is its versatility; it can be anything you want and need it to be. So of my students were skeptical about using this platform at the beginning of the year, but most of them have really taken to using it. It has opened a new world to them in terms of collaboration with their classmates and with me as a teacher. They are eager to share Google Docs with me and get instant feedback on their writing, and group projects have become much easier to handle because they can collaborate in real time anywhere. I love the fact that the Google Classroom app is available for all devices, so although we use it on our Chromebooks, most of my students have the app on their phone and tablet, as do I. For me, the greatest part about using Google Classroom has been the way my students have become more accountable and self-directed. They know that their work is all in once place and they can go back to it at any time. We have an archive of our learning for the year and I am extremely satisfied at having successfully pushed many of my students to feel much more comfortable using technology academically and helping them start to build the skills they need in order to be marketable in our information and tech-heavy job market of today and the future.

This tool makes the whole process of creating a lesson, assigning it to students, collecting student work, and then grading it extremely easy once you get used to it, and that won't take very long. The more you use it the more you discover and if you have any questions about what else you can do with the program it's as easy as going to the forums or looking online for help as the resources are endless- and free.

Overall, I love this tool and I never want to teach without it. It streamlines content delivery and makes keeping track of students' work much easier. My classroom is almost completely paperless since we started using it. It just makes things easier to organize, for both me and my students.

Google Classroom has changed the way I teach, and I cannot say enough about it. It allows me to communicate with students outside of traditional class times; and it allows my students to collaborate with each other on projects, find notes, videos, and files relevant to class at any hour, and send me messages right when they need answers. My view of Google Classroom is that it becomes what each teacher or student needs it to become. Classroom’s versatility allows teachers to use it with third-party apps, making lessons and materials accessible to students through a variety of mediums, which really helps non-traditional learners. You can use Classroom if you adhere to a flipped or blended class model, as well, since teachers and students can post just about anything to its stream. At the beginning of each year, my students receive a code and they join my classes in fewer than five minutes. Classroom is intuitive, easy to use, and accessible to all students. I am not completely blind to where Google Classroom can improve, however. In terms of grading options, Classroom is limited. You can assign grades /10 and /100, but unless you use Annotations, the chance to give more feedback just isn’t there. At our school, Classroom is not integrated with Plus Portals, which we use to communicate overall grades to parents and students. Thus, an extra step is necessary to transfer grades. I am willing to go this extra yard, though, since I prefer Classroom so much to Plus Portals. I would also like to see Google add a method by which I could group students in Classroom, so I can fine tune collaboration and creativity grades even further. Finally, students, at times, have trouble uploading and submitting documents. Usually, they simply miss a step, but there are times when perhaps better instructions could be available (although I usually provide these myself so students don’t miss anything). Fortunately, Google Classroom is constantly evolving, and the fine folks at Google are more than receptive when it comes to teacher feedback. Many of the additions to Classroom in the past two years, in fact, have come from teacher suggestions. If you use Classroom, I would encourage you to give feedback whenever you run into something that doesn’t work as you would like it to for yourself or your students.

I think that Google Classroom is the best LMS out there if you are a Google Apps for Education school. I love that it allows all of your Google tools to be in one place. I have noticed that it improves communication between teacher and student, and allows for improved organization on both ends. I like the assignment feature (especially the new scheduling feature), and the ability to see student work in real time (both the work itself and submissions). It is easy to provide meaningful feedback to students, which is sent directly to them. I would like to see expanded grading options, beyond /10, /100 and no grade. Especially since many schooling systems do not follow this grading format and it can get confusing for students. I think a qualifier or symbol option would be great so that students focus more on the feedback rather than the grade. I would also love to see a differentiation button on the assignments. I think it would be great to find a way to assign assignments to groups rather than individually or to the whole class. In addition, the calendar integration is great and I love the alerts for students about upcoming assignments, I think it would be great if a small calendar could be embedded in the side panel to give students a visual representation of long term deadlines. I have found having students join classes extremely simple, they either enter a code or I enter them manually, this took less than 5 minutes and most students figured it out on their own. As for the about section, in Chrome you are able to add resources, but on the app version you are not able to do this yet, and I think this is something that should be rectified. Overall Google Classroom is a continually evolving tool, both on Chrome and on the app. I have been with Classroom since its creation and have been continually impressed with the improvements that it makes. I highly recommend this tool!

Google Classroom is a "must have" if you are using Google Apps with your students. One of the most frustrating things about using GAFE with students is the management of all their documents. Using Google Classroom solves all of these issues and saves you gobs of time as a foldering structure is automatically created the second you create your classroom. As you create assignments, additional folders are created making organization so easy. If you are all about saving time, don't overlook this product. You will certainly be amazed. While Google Classroom isn't as robust as Blackboard, Moodle or Schoology, you can utilize additional Google Apps, Add-ons, and other third-party apps to help compensate. For example, you can embed various types of formative assessment by adding a link to a Google Form or Padlet Wall. One big wish I have for Classroom is the ability to embed other video sources beyond YouTube videos. Although you can link to other sources, I do wish we could embed. Google Classroom helps with providing students more authentic feedback. It's quicker and more meaningful since it not only comes from you, the teacher but also other classmates. Google Classroom also provides students a publishing platform. As students learn and create, they can quickly share their work in Google Classroom allowing other students to view and comment. Learning becomes a social event and is more relevant to our digital natives.

All teachers are over burdened and this tool makes classrooms more integrated in a way that can really free up a teacher from the paperwork burden. By pulling every student into this digital classroom engagement goes way up. Here's the downside: All Google is work intensive, especially up front. You'll have to take time out of the already booked schedule to learn all the aspects of this tool and to bring all your students to a place where they know how to use this tool in a productive and respectful way.

Google Classroom isn't perfect yet, students can use Doc, Sheets, and Slides, all free at a GAFE school. Can be difficult to use for special needs students and ELL students.