FTT - Google Classroom

Image Capture of a Professional Development Class
I taught using Google Classroom

Is Google Classroom The Answer?

@joe_edtech

I thought about building up the answer to that question in a long drawn out "Who Shot JR?" mystery (If you don't get that reference, please ask an adult.). But I can't. As of today, the answer is no, Google Classroom is not the best LMS on the market - it isn't even the best "free" LMS. However, if we treat Google Classroom as if it were in beta, and it is really less than a year old, we could confidently conclude that it is a good start.

Let's start by talking about what Google Classroom is. It is the component from Google Apps for Education that is designed to be a learning management system (LMS). So, in Google Apps districts I often get questions from teachers about the best Google tool to use with their students. The answer is, it depends. But it helps to look at the original purpose for each of the Google tools. Blogger is strictly a blogging tool - despite some interactive features, it really is about one way communication of ideas. Blogger is about posting writing to an authentic audience. Google Sites is a fully capable, easy to use Website creation tool best for posting and accessing static resources. Google +, currently hooked up to life support, was really designed to be a social network for connecting and communicating with friends, colleagues, like minded people, etc. All of these tools CAN be used to manage an online component of the classes you teach. ONLY Google Classroom was designed to be a complete classroom solution.

Over the next several weeks (4, I think), I'll spend some time talking about specific capabilities in Google Classroom, but today I just want to introduce the product and talk about what it does really well. Classroom allows you to organize your students and materials in a way that is fairly simple for your students to understand, post assignments with due dates, share copies of Google Documents with all of your students in an organized and easy to use way, grade and return online assignments in a variety of ways. It also allows you to set up easy communication with your students. By that I mean that there is not only a spot for public discussions, but Classroom also facilitates easy private conversations with individual students about assignments or work in general.

If you were cynical, you might say that all learning management systems allow teachers to post assignments and facilitate communication. You'd be right. The advantage of Google Classroom is that it is a part of the Google Apps Suite, and this is particularly true if you are teaching in a Chromebook school, since the students "live" in Google Apps for Ed, you aren't asking them to go somewhere else to log in and access class materials. Everything is in one world - ish.

It is also important to talk about obvious areas for improvement for Google Classroom. I see three must-haves before Classroom becomes "the answer" broadly. First, it does not currently support co-teachers (a future post will show you work arounds for this problem - but it is a serious problem if you work with a co-teacher or in course teams). See Update Below! Secondly, it does not seamlessly integrate with all other Google Apps. For instance, when you make an assignment, there isn't a calendar event created for all of your students. Finally, classroom is modeled off of the Google + "Stream." As of this moment, it is difficult to manually organize assignments and announcements. The most recent assignment will appear at the top of the stream and will move down the stream as you add new ones. If you have students who have difficulty organizing information, they will require a little direct instruction before Classroom becomes natural and easy to use.

I know parts of this post sound negative, but I am actually very hopeful about Google Classroom, otherwise I wouldn't spend so much time on it. As I said, if we are talking about this as a tool in development, which it clearly is, they are off to a great start. And, if you aren't using an LMS to organize the digital components of your classes, Google Classroom is a great way to start and will allow you to do things with your students that you've never been able to do before - and that is the point of technological advancements.

Classroom is available for all Google Apps for Education domains. In District 113, the students already have the Classroom App installed on their Chromebooks and should be ready to go.

WAIT-

***UPDATED - Of course this happens the day I post this blog! Whatever, I'm very happy. As of today you can have co-teachers in Google Classroom. As I said, Classroom continues to improve!
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Next Tuesday I'll look a little closer at the Posting Assignment feature and the ability to share docs inside Classroom. In the mean time, click here for some resources I've put together to help you get started with Google Classrom.