Weekly Reflection Blog Post #4- Feb. 6th
This week, I was excited to explore the inner workings of Google Classroom. I saw it on the weekly outline and wanted to know more about the teaching side of the tool. The best way to do this was to create my own mock Classroom. I had always been on the other side of this tool as a student and loved it. I thought it was so simple to use and effective for receiving, organizing, and submitting assignments and seeing grades. I wondered how this was going to look as a teacher, and it ended up being just as easy and fun! I simulated what one of my future Classrooms could look like for a social studies 10 group. I acted as though it was the first week of the first semester in September. I put together the main steam page with five starter posts. These posts were a hello and introduction to the course with a YouTube video attached (shown in blog post below), a diagnostic discussion question asking what people wanted to learn in the course, an assignment #1 for creating a class contract, a quiz about the students’ main facts and interests, and a song of the day submission. These were all very easy and user-friendly to make without any grief. I could add so many more different types of posts but just stuck to this base for now to try it out.
I found this tool exceptionally great to use. The formatting of it is how a website should be, especially for teachers and students. The stream where posts and everything can be seen, the classwork where you can just see the assignments, the people where you have your class list, and the grades portal where all results can be calculated and shown to students. It is a more stream-lined and visually appealing version of Brightspace or Moodle. There is a reason why most middle and high schools use this as their schools’ universal system.
Google Classroom also isn’t just a stand-alone application. It can be used as an educational hub for the Google ecosystem. In multiple ways, Classroom can utilize Google drive, docs, sheets, slides, notes, calendar, photos, vids, and forms. Depending on the assignment or activity given, one or more of these Google tools can house it. I was able to already use drive, docs, forms, and vids when creating my initial Classroom. Another great aspect to consider is the inclusion of parents to the space. Without having to physically come in, phone or email, parents can get constant updates on what is going on in the class, what is coming up, due dates, etc. There is a separate way to include parents that still gives them the link with all the content and daily reviews, but doesn’t let them see anything like grades or specific class conversations. Everyone can be more informed about the learning this way.
Because I like it so much, it is difficult to think of possible cons. Thinking deeper though, I could maybe see how the Google-centric model could limit some students who are accustomed to a different software already. It might be challenging to grasp a new interface and submit files that are not compatible. Then again, it is very easy to learn, widely available on all devices, and will be on all school computers and laptops. So the con might just be the learning curve and adjustment to using Google company. Along with this, students and teachers would have to learn how to manage drive files in organized folders or else it can get disorganized with so many documents. Another possible con could be the stream of notifications. Classroom is said to have many notifications constantly going out to students and parents about the many files, dates, announcements, events, etc. so some may be forgotten about or missed in the pile. And of course, like many technological tools, the internet can cause problems. You have to plan ways around using Classroom 24/7 in case the school’s internet goes down or certain students don’t have proper access at home. This shouldn’t happen a lot but it still needs to be considered for the odd occasion. There has to be ways to navigate learning without relying on the solely online space.
Overall, the benefits strongly outweigh the negatives, and the negatives themselves can be fixed a lot of the time. I could easily see myself using this tool as a teacher and using it as a huge crutch to structure my classes.
https://classroom.google.com/c/ODQzNTg0MDMyMTY1 = class code: gek2dgd2