Happy 10th Birthday Google Classroom!

It is hard to believe, but Google Classroom came out 10 years ago!

Before we had Classroom, I remember leading loads of PD sessions where I tried to help teachers build their own system in Google Drive where they created shared folders for every student, developed consistent naming schemes, and tried their best to stay relatively organized with the hundreds of files shared by their students.

Then along came Classroom! It automated and simplified file management for teachers, but also made it easier to assist students with their work. Over the years more and more new features have been added to build on this foundation.

On August 14th Google celebrated the 10th birthday of Google Classroom. To help celebrate I updated and reorganized my Classroom Resource page on my blog. Now it is easier for folks to find all of my Google Classroom tutorial videos, blog posts, resource docs, slideshows, and more.

You can check out all the resources here - www.controlaltachieve.com/classroom - or in the rest of the blog post below.

[Image credit ChatGPT]

16 Updates to Make Google BETTer

This week Google is in London at BETT, the world’s biggest educational technology exhibition. At the event, companies from all around the world show off their latest and greatest innovations for educational technology.

Google is using this opportunity to showcase new updates for Google Workspace for Education. These updates include new features for Google Classroom, Docs, Accessibility, Chromebooks, AI, and more!

Although I have never been to BETT yet (definitely a goal for the future!) I wanted to share these new updates with you. See below for my rundown of my favorite new updates that Google is announcing. For each item I give the gist of what is new as well as how these updates can make teaching and learning BETTer.

15 Updates to Make Google BETTer

This week Google is in London at BETT, the world’s biggest educational technology exhibition. At the event, companies from all around the world show off their latest and greatest innovations for educational technology.

Google is using this opportunity to showcase new updates for Google Workspace for Education. These updates include new features for Google Classroom, Docs, Slides, Meet, Chromebooks, Security, and more!

Although I have never been to BETT yet (definitely a goal for the future!) I wanted to share all of these new updates with you. See below for my rundown of everything new that Google is announcing. For each item I give the gist of what is new as well as how these updates can make teaching and learning BETTer.

8 Google Classroom Mobile Features

Most Google-using educators already know that Google Classroom is a great tool for managing class assignments, collaboration, discussions and more. However, as much as you may think you know about Classroom, there are several awesome features for you and your students that you may not be aware of.

In addition to the normal web-based version of Classroom, there is also a Google Classroom mobile app. The Classroom mobile app can be used on phones (Android and iOS), tablets (Android and iOS), and on Chromebooks (with Android apps enabled).

Many times when we think of mobile app, we think of a simpler, watered-down version of the full program. However, that is not always the case, and certainly is not true for Classroom. In fact, there are several awesome tools and features that can only be accessed if you and your students are using the mobile version of Classroom.

These features include:

✍️ Digital handwriting

📸 Taking pictures

🎞️ Recording videos

📄 Scan Feature

✋ Student Selector

📶 Offline Access

🔔 Notifications

➡️ Content from other apps

To learn all of these powerful mobile features, see below for my recorded video training, detailed written directions, links, and other resources.  See how you and your students can take Classroom to the next level with mobile!

Get the Most out of Google Classroom

I recently had the privilege to present a session for Google's series of "Did You Know?" webinars. These are a collection of 8 sessions covering a wide range of Google tools for schools.

You can learn more about the entire "Did You Know?" series in my earlier blog post here: Free Google Webinars - "Did You Know" Series

For my second session I presented the following webinar:

Get the Most out of Google Classroom

Description: Learn how Google Classroom can supercharge your assignments with differentiation, topics, rubrics, originality reports, comment banks, digital markup, and more! Also get a look at the latest and greatest new features coming to Classroom.

See below to watch the recorded webinar, as well as access the session slideshow and resources.

Introducing Practice Sets for Google Classroom

We all know the phrase "practice makes perfect" but that's not actually true. A better way to say it is "practice makes permanent". 

If a student practices incorrectly they will reinforce the wrong procedures or information. 

To help with this Google has created a brand new feature for Google Classroom called practice sets which makes it super easy for teachers to create assessments, and uses artificial intelligence to provide guided support, feedback, and correction for students when working through the questions.

See below for a video overview of practice sets and my interview with Taryn Sullivan from the practice sets team at Google for more details on this awesome new tool.

40 Google for Education Updates for Summer 2021

Summer is a nice time to take a break and relax, but Google has instead been busy working on new updates and features for schools. 

On June 22nd Google hosted their "Anywhere School 2021" event (http://goo.gle/tas21) where they covered loads of announcements concerning 40 updates for Google Classroom, Google Meet, Chrome and Chromebooks, and Google Workspace tools in general.

In case you missed it, or are just trying to review through everything that was shared, see below for a list of all 40 updates that were shared at the event.

End-Of-Year Google Classroom Clean-up Tips

As the school year winds down, most teachers go through some sort of check-out procedure for their physical classrooms, making sure everything is properly organized or put away for the summer. In much the same way, you may want to do some clean-up and close-out steps for your digital classroom ... Google Classroom.

Google Classroom is a powerful tool to help you and your students collaborate and communicate, but when used year after year, it can start to become a bit of a mess and a management challenge. To help with this, there are several suggestions to consider for Classroom when wrapping up the school year.

See below for six steps that may help you clean up your Classroom as you transition from one school year to the next. However, keep in mind these are all just suggestions and each is optional. While some may not apply to your situation, hopefully several will assist you in keeping your Classroom organized, clutter-free, and efficient for a new year.

(Note: The video below is from 2019 but the content is still relevant. I have updated a few of the images in the written directions to reflect some minor changes, such as "To do" now being called "To review".)

Using Rubrics in Google Classroom

Rubrics are a popular and helpful tool for assessment. You are probably already familiar with what a rubric is, but if not… A rubric is an evaluation tool that uses several criteria, rather than just one score, to assess a student’s skills or performance on a continuum of how well they have mastered those skills.

A rubric can be very helpful for you and your students:

• It lets students know what is expected and provides detailed assessment feedback.
• It also helps guide your instruction and encourages consistency when grading.

There are many tools for creating and using rubrics, but thankfully this feature is also built right into Google Classroom. To help out I have put together a short 7-minute video on using rubrics in Google Classroom including:

• Creating a rubric from scratch
• Reusing a rubric from another class or assignment
• Importing a rubric from a Google Sheets template
• Attaching a rubric to an assignment
• Grading an assignment with the rubric

See below for the video with all the detailed steps, as well as a link to the Google Sheet rubric template.

Google Meet is now integrated in Google Classroom!

In an earlier blog post and video I explained how you can use Nicknames when creating a Google Meet to keep students from joining the Meet before you, or from rejoining the Meet after you have left. (You can see the post and video here.)

That method still works great, especially for those people who do not use Google Classroom at all, or if you are inviting students to a Meet who are not part of your Google Classroom. However for those who use Google Classroom, we now have a new easy option for managing Meets with your students!

In general here's how it works…

• For each Google Classroom you have, you can now generate a unique Google Meet link for the students in that Classroom. 
• The link for the Meet can be displayed on the Stream page and the Classwork page of the Classroom so you and your students can access it easily. 
• You can use the same Meet link over and over again anytime you want to video conference with your students. 
• However, the students cannot join the Meet without you, so they can't access the Meet before you are there, or rejoin the Meet after it is over and you have left. 

See below for detailed directions on how to use this feature, as well as a short 6-minute video that demonstrates all the steps.

How to Create Self-Grading Quizzes in Google Classroom

Google Forms is a fantastic tools for making self-grading assessment for students. Google Classroom is a wonderful way to assign and collect work from students.

Wouldn't it be great to put these two great tools together?

Well, just like the peanut butter and chocolate in a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, Google Forms and Google Classroom work together perfectly to make it easier than ever to create, distribute, and grade assessments in schools.

When you create a quiz through Classroom, many of the needed settings in Google Forms are automatically taken care of for you, there's no need to worry about copying the correct link for the quiz, and the student grades are easily imported right into your Classroom grade book!

See below for a quick 8-minute video that will show you everything you need to know for creating quizzes in Classroom. Then if you want to dig even deeper, I have also included a 1-hour video from a webinar I did a while back that goes into more advanced options and uses of Forms for assessments.

Video Series: How to Use Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a powerful tool that allows teachers and students to create assignments, turn in work, grade assignments, share resources, have class discussions, and much more.

Classroom is constantly improving with new features. To help schools make the most out of Classroom, I have put together a series of videos on how to use this tool.

My goal for these videos is to keep them as short as possible, and have each one cover just a single topic. This way users can find just the information they need and can watch it quickly. Also, since Google Classroom gets frequent updates, it will be easier for me to replace a small video when it becomes outdated with a new version.

I plan to continue adding more videos to this series, so please let me know what Google Classroom topics or questions you would like me to address in a future video. See below for the current list of my Classroom help videos.

End-Of-Year Google Classroom Clean-up Tips

As the school year winds down, most teachers go through some sort of check-out procedure for their physical classrooms, making sure everything is properly organized or put away for the summer. In much the same way, you may want to do some clean-up and close-out steps for your digital classroom ... Google Classroom.

Google Classroom is a powerful tool to help you and your students collaborate and communicate, but when used year after year, it can start to become a bit of a mess and a management challenge. To help with this, there are several suggestions to consider for Classroom when wrapping up the school year.

See below for six steps that may help you clean up your Classroom as you transition from one school year to the next. However, keep in mind these are all just suggestions and each is optional. While some may not apply to your situation, hopefully several will assist you in keeping your Classroom organized, clutter-free, and efficient for a new year.

(Note: The video below is from 2019 but the content is still relevant. I have updated a few of the images in the written directions to reflect some minor changes, such as "To do" now being called "To review".)

What to do About the Missing "About" Page in Google Classroom?

Recently Google rolled out some great updates for Google Classroom. You can see my earlier post for all the details here: 9 Updates for Google Classroom (and 3 more to come)

As awesome as these updates are, we did end up losing one feature in the process… the "About" page. In the past Google Classroom had an "About" page that contained lots of information related to the class. Some of those items got moved to other pages. However, one big thing missing is the ability to add class resources.

The "About" page was a nice location to provide easy access to common websites, a syllabus, style guides, and other reference materials for students. According to Google we will have the ability to add such class materials to the new "Classwork" page in the near future, but for now that feature has not been released.

So what can you do in the time being if you want to share classroom resources without an "About" page? See below for a few ideas on possible alternatives for now.

9 Updates for Google Classroom (and 3 more to come)

When Google Classroom launched in 2014 it was immediately a valuable tool to save educators time and increase connection with students. Since then Google has continued to make updates to Classroom, bringing new features and improvements.

Google has been very busy over the summer for the start of the new 2018 school year. Classroom has received nine updates, and has three more to come in the near future. In this blog post we will take a look at each of these updates, how they work, and what impact they will have on teaching and learning.

Copy Comments to Google Classroom Docs and Slides

Several months ago I shared a blog post about "How to Force a Docs Copy WITH Pre-Loaded Comments to Help your Students". The post explained a URL trick you can use to not only make a copy of a document, but to also copy any comments you have made in the Doc.

This can also be a creative way to provide additional resources, links, and assistance to your students in their projects. Instead of just getting a copy of a worksheet, HyperDoc, study guide, or other document, students can also have comments pre-loaded into their copy of the document. These comments can provide them with:

• Additional directions
• Hyperlinks to resources
• Voice recordings from the teacher
• A checklist of items for the student to resolve
• And more

The only drawback was this trick does not work in Google Classroom. So if you use Classroom to push out copies of Docs or Slides to students, there was no way to also copy the comments during that process.

Until now…

See below for details on a great new Chrome extension that lets you copy comments for Docs and Slides when making copies through a Classroom assignment.

Amazing Mobile Features of Google Classroom

Most Google-using educators already know that Google Classroom is a great tool for managing class assignments, collaboration, discussions and more. However, as much as you may think you know about Classroom, there are several awesome features for you and your students that you may not be aware of.

In addition to the normal web-based version of Classroom, there is also a Google Classroom mobile app. The Classroom mobile app can be used on phones (Android and iOS), tablets (Android and iOS), and on Chromebooks (with Android apps enabled).

Many times when we think of mobile app, we think of a simpler, watered-down version of the full program. However, that is not always the case, and certainly is not true for Classroom. In fact, there are several awesome tools and features that can only be accessed if you and your students are using the mobile version of Classroom.

These features include:

✍️ Digital handwriting

📸 Taking pictures

🎞️ Recording videos

📄 Scan Feature

✋ Student Selector

📶 Offline Access

🔔 Notifications

➡️ Content from other apps

To learn all of these powerful mobile features, see below for my recorded video training, detailed written directions, links, and other resources.  See how you and your students can take Classroom to the next level with mobile!

6 End-Of-Year Google Classroom Clean-up Tips

As the school year winds down, most teachers go through some sort of check-out procedure for their physical classrooms, making sure everything is properly organized or put away for the summer. In much the same way, you may want to do some clean-up and close-out steps for your digital classroom ... Google Classroom.

Google Classroom is a powerful tool to help you and your students collaborate and communicate, but when used year after year, it can start to become a bit of a mess and a management challenge. To help with this, there are several suggestions to consider for Classroom when wrapping up the school year.

See below for six steps that may help you clean up your Classroom as you transition from one school year to the next. However, keep in mind these are all just suggestions and each is optional. While some may not apply to your situation, hopefully several will assist you in keeping your Classroom organized, clutter-free, and efficient for a new year.

(Note: The video below is from 2019 but the content is still relevant. I have updated a few of the images in the written directions to reflect some minor changes, such as "To do" now being called "To review".)

Triple Differentiation in Google Classroom - Beginning, Middle, and End

Choice is a wonderful thing. We all love choice in our daily lives from what clothes you dressed in this morning, to what food you ate for lunch today, to what entertainment you will enjoy tonight.

What is true in our personal lives is also true for learning in schools.

I have four children of my own, and each one thinks, learns, struggles, and succeeds differently. As educators, rather than trying to force all children in a preset mold, we need to meet them where they are, accommodate for their struggles, tap into their interests, and help them grow as best as they can.

Thankfully technology can provide some assistance with this daunting task. One particular tool that can help us and our students is Google Classroom. With Google Classroom we can differentiate our students' learning at each step of a project:

• Beginning - Who the students are
• Middle - How the students learn
• End - What the students make

See below for details on how to use Classroom to differentiate at each of these steps through the beginning, middle, and end of a learning activity.

3 Google Updates Announced at Education On Air 2016

Christmas came a little early for attendees of Google’s 2016 Education On Air virtual conference.

As part of the opening keynote presentations, Google added in a short section to reveal several new updates for G Suite for Education (formerly Google Apps for Education). These updates included:

1. New ways for students to log into Chromebooks
2. Parents no longer need Google accounts for Classroom email summaries
3. Graduating students can move email and Drive files to personal accounts

Education On Air is a (somewhat) annual event where educators from around the world offer free professional development sessions as live video presentations through Google Hangouts. I have been fortunate to present at each EduOnAir since the first one. This year my session was on “Fantastic Feedback Tools for Google Doc” which you can find here: EduOnAir link

You can view all of the recorded sessions from this year at:
https://educationonair.withgoogle.com/live/2016-dec/

As for the three new G Suite for Education features, see below for all the details…