What is Google Classroom?

Google Classroom is a tool in Google Apps for Education that helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and easily communicate with their classes. It is growing in popularity across the world and the very best of schools are getting in on its advantages.

1. WHAT IS GOOGLE CLASSROOM?

Google has described Google Classroom as ‘your mission control for class’. Creating a paperless school environment is their ultimate goal. It serves as an opportunity for schools to gather everything they need to teach and learn into one easy-to-use online system. Everything needed is interlinked: lesson plans, assignments, gmail, your calendar, Google+ etc. This service is free for students and teachers and works on any computer, tablet and phone. It’s interface is user friendly i.e. easy to use and quite clean,pretty much like other Google products. While mistaken for a Learning Management System (LMS), Google Classroom is more of a file management system.  Google Classroom simplifies the distribution and collection process of student work. The teacher is able to compile a collection of documents, videos and resource links into an assignment. The students can view the document, edit the document, or receive a copy of the document depending on the settings set by the teacher.

2. HOW DOES BENEFIT TEACHERS?

a, Create a classroom and add your students.

b, Create lesson plans

c, Give assignments and provide evaluation/feedback in case students have questions to guide them in completing their assignments.

d, Attach grades to completed assignments,

e, Attach forms for students to fill out.

f, Create a school calendar with field trips, due dates and so much more.

There are even options for educators to join as learners, so you can use the service for faculty meetings, information sharing and even professional development. Most importantly, you can see everything in one place. Instant. Paperless. Easy.

3. WHAT DO STUDENTS GAIN FROM IT?

a, Students can ‘join’ the class in one click and have all the materials for that subject at their fingertips.

b,They can communicate with teachers privately or get feedback from the rest of their classmates, work on group projects and submit assignments via Google Docs, Drive files or links.

c, They can also add multimedia elements to your submissions. There are additional kid-friendly apps to explore your spare time.

What’s more? Parents can see what you are working on at school without you having to cart loads of books to and from home everyday. However, it might become increasingly difficult to accidentally ‘lose’ your homework or ‘forget’ to do it. This may be not what some students might like but it ultimately make you a more responsible student and better for it.

4. OUR OPINION

If you are thinking of adopting a google classroom for your school, we say go for it! However, because of our peculiar situation in Nigeria relating to quality of internet accessibility and affordability, you need to ensure that all your students have full access to the internet at home before embarking on it so mishaps can be avoided. Google classroom is indeed a great tool for students, teachers and parents. Being paperless means being more environmentally friendly and saving money. It saves time and allows everyone to spend more time on the important suff. However, to work effectively, the whole school really needs to get on board. Although the service is free, it may not be affordable for schools or students who do not have the budget for the necessary devices and connectivity. As noted before, you must be connected to the internet for the service to work. Google Classroom is constantly updating, and they’re starting the academic year with some timely improvements based on user feedback.

Go Google Classroom or Not? Tell us what you think! We can help you through this! 

 - Culled from https://www.kidsdailies.com. See even more there too.