Thursday 18 September 2014

Google’s Classroom Empowers You To “Do What You Love- Teaching”

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Are you ready for a better classroom? Now you can improve the learning experience for your students with Google Classroom, which you can access with your Google Apps for Education account.

Google Classroom- A Better Classroom

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This online tool, which was originally launched in May, provides you a unified system and a single dashboard for various services offered by Google, including Gmail, Drive and Docs. Now teachers will be able to deliver assignments and other classroom materials easily to their students.

In the official Google blog, Classroom Product Manager Zach Yeskel wrote “When we introduced Classroom back in May, we asked educators to give it a try. The response was exciting — more than 100,000 educators from more than 45 countries signed up for a preview. Today, we’re starting to open Classroom to all Google Apps for Education users, helping teachers spend more time teaching and less time shuffling papers.

How Google Classroom Can Enhance You Teaching

As an educator, you will be able to make new classes and add different students manually. You can also choose to share unique codes which will enable relevant students can add themselves quickly. Similarly, you can also set up assignments whenever you want from the Google Apps dashboard. You can also incorporate necessary information, like name of assignment, deadline and synopsis, and optional materials from Drive, YouTube or a webpage.

Moreover, you can also determine the privileges for Drive/Docs files and choose them from students can edit file; students can view file; or make a copy for each student. The last option is especially significant as it rapidly copies tests, worksheets, and other documents to prevent students from overwriting one another’s work.

Help Your Students Learn Better

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Your students will also be able to access an identical dashboard which they can use to complete their assignments via Google Docs. As your students submit their assignments and projects, you will be able to check who exactly has failed to meet the deadline. You can also offer individual feedback, review work and provide grades through the online learning management system for schools.

The company blog stated, “Teachers and students have been instrumental in helping us build Classroom. For example, we heard during the preview that educators don’t want to wait until an assignment is turned in to collaborate with students. Now, with Classroom, teachers can view and comment on students’ work to help them along the way.”

Classroom Product Manager Yeskel further wrote “We’ve also heard that educators want a simple place to post information and materials about their classes, so we added an “About” page for each course, as well.”

Making It Easier And Faster

Fontbonne Hall Academy in Brooklyn, New York was among the first few schools to try out Google Classroom. Sister Rosemarie DeLoro, who had never used computers for teaching, found Classroom helpful in assigning digital worksheets and offering direct feedback. Sister Rosemarie was so impressed with the service that she even encouraged other teachers to use the online system. She said “You can’t stay in teaching and keep going to the old ways.”

Currently Google Classroom is available in 42 different languages, including Persian, Arabic and Hebrew. You can easily access it through mobile devices and other screen readers. Zach Yeskel of Google concluded by saying “Hopefully Classroom will help you spend a little less time at the photocopier and a little more time doing what you love—teaching.”

What do you think about Google’s new initiative? Will you be using Classroom in your own class to help your students learn better? Let us know what you think by commenting below.

Article Source: tnw.co/1rSaj3V

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