Community reviews for Google Classroom

There are plenty of ways to use Google Classroom. It can be used in a traditional way and teacher-lead or, with an innovative teacher, it can lead to more collaboration and agency by the students. It's necessary for new teacher users to be trained and see innovative ideas on how to use Classroom to increase engagement. Alice Keeler has a very furnished website and wrote a book which can help give ideas: "50 things you can do with Google Classroom". In addition, it's necessary to watch YouTube videos on the latest features such as the Calendar integration. The students like the tool for many reasons: it's organized so they can also find what was done in class and, when absent, what to catch up with. They like to see the deadlines on a calendar so they keep track of their assignments and manage their time effectively. They appreciate the fact that teachers use collaborative files from Drive, chat, announcements because there is more room for team-work and project-based learning. They like to use the extension "Save to Classroom" on Chrome in order to share site links easily with the rest of the class, like their teachers.

Google Classroom is an excellent Web 2.0 application, it facilitates blended learning and expands learning time, encourages students participation and collaboration and it goes along with Google Apps. It is user friendly and free. It is accessibe on any platform and through any device.

I am a GAFE school, so my students all have an email that we assigned to them. Without that, I cringe at how annoying this would be to set up with any students younger than middle school. It still doesn't do everything, but give them time, I'm sure it will be a powerhouse soon.

Google Classroom is the answer to anyone who used Drive with students before Classrooms existence. It automatically saves and organizes student work in the teachers drive. It also allows students to access templates and for teachers to distribute work easily to all students in a class. I have no reservations about making the recommendation to use Classroom. That being said, I do wish there was a better way to attach quizzes via forms and better ways to grade through classroom. I am hoping that Google continues to improve functionality (still relatively new).

Google Classroom removes the need for pencil-paper assignments, as well as giving students access to assignments anytime/anywhere. Teacher can lead discussions, share lessons, create activities, and more, all in an easy-to-use environment. We use Google Classroom with ChromeBooks, and even our most reluctant teachers have found this resource to be helpful and engaging for students.

Google Classroom is a great "file manager" for Google Drive, however, it is NOT a replacement for Edmodo or Schoology. Parents may be interested in seeing the homework assignments that their students have, but it is not possible because there is no provision for parent access, unless you add parents to your Google domain or share the join code with them. The problem with this is parents will have the same access as the students, which will throw your assignment counts (completed, late, etc) off. It also doesn't seem to be very intuitive for students who are struggling readers. It requires the use of a Google Apps for Education account, it will not work with a "regular" gmail account. Assignment due dates will be added to a Google Calendar for the class, which can be helpful for planning longer assignments provided students are using Google Calendar. Google Classroom is off to a great start!

I think that the Google Classroom application serves as a very productive teaching tool booth inside and outside the classroom. I like the fact that both my students and I are able to share with each other resources such as links to educational websites, documents, and files by using the message board function. It would serve my students better if there was a more user friendly interface regarding providing help navigating and using the classroom, as I feel it takes some trial and error to master this application.

This is a great organizational and motivational tool. It motivates kids and keeps me organized. I love the ability to have conversations with my students and to student groups collaborate. Being able to communicate comments about student work and to hand it back to the student with the click of the mouse is incredible. Finally, this product allows our school to become better at creating digital archives of all student work. Doing this helps us show evolution of leaning and thinking.

Honestly I love this site and have no idea how I taught without this tool! I believe it has allowed me to become a more organized and effective educator, while giving me a tool that can help create a "student centered classroom" . One of the best features of using google classroom is that kids now have a digital record of things we have done in class! Students often lose assignments, warmups, notes, but now they have a digital record of all of this! When a student is absent, all they have to do is go onto google classroom and they can see a lot of what we did that day (notes, warmups, homeworks, etc.). Students have already asked me questions about assignments using this tool at 9 at night and I have the ability to answer them right then and there (but often other students answer before I am even able to, which is another great feature). Grading has become a breeze, since now I don't have to lug papers everyone I go! All I need is access to the internet and I can do a ton of my grading (and return the assignments right then and there...without using up time in class handing back old assignments). It has actually started to eliminate some of the most common questions that educators get!"When is this due? " "why did I receive a 7/10 on this assignment?""When are you going to return that assignment?""Can I get another notes packet?" It's wonderful to have a tool that takes away some of these silly questions so that we can really concentrate on the subject matter. Creating a virtual classroom, actually allows me to take one more step away from the traditional "lecture style" of teaching. The more and more I use it...the more students can work at their pace (differentiated instruction anyone?), and allows me to concentrate on students struggling with a particular problem, or concept. Things I would change: I would like to allow parents to enter my classroom as "observers". Right now parents have to ask their kids for logins to be able to see what I have been doing in class. I wish I could give parents "observation rights" ...allowing them to see what is going on in class, while not actually being a part of the class. I would also change how they do the file system in the "about" section. It is actually difficult to set up a folder (or maybe I just don't know how to do this effectively yet). I would also find a better way to incorporate google calendars as right now it is difficult to infuse a google calendar with google classroom.

Classroom is a great instructional tool that can be used to facilitate student driven learning in your instruction. If you are working to flip your classroom and move toward a more paperless classroom, this tool can help you achieve your goal.