Google Classroom

GOOGLE CLASSROOM

It is a free blended learning platform developed by Google for educational institutions that aims to simplify creating, distributing, and grading assignments.
The primary purpose of Google Classroom is to streamline the process of sharing files between teachers and students. As of 2021, approximately 150 million users use Google Classroom.
Google Classroom integrates a variety of Google Applications for Education to manage student and teacher communication.
Students can be invited to join a class through a private “class code” or be imported automatically from a school domain. Teachers can create, distribute and mark assignments all within the Google domain.
Each class creates a separate folder in the respective user’s Google Drive, where the student can submit work to be graded by a teacher. Teachers can monitor each student’s progress by reviewing revision history of a document, and after being graded, teachers can return work along with comments and grades.

CLASSROOM RESPONSE SYSTEM

Pedagogical background
It 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.
Google Classroom integrates several Google Applications for Education, such as Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Forms, Google Sites, and Gmail to help educational institutions.
Google Calendar was later integrated to help with assignment due dates and other important dates.
Google Classroom offers an efficient and simple way to communicate. It is an integrated system that allows teachers to organize their classes, improve interaction with students and simplify homework assignments.
Students can be invited to classrooms through the institution’s database, through a private code that can be added in the student’s user interface, or automatically imported from a school domain. Each class created with Google Classroom creates a separate folder in the respective user’s Google Drive, where the student can submit work to be graded by a teacher.
It allows:

• Assignments: are stored and graded on Google’s document applications. Instead of sharing documents that reside on the student’s Google Drive with the teacher, files are hosted on the student’s Drive and then submitted for grading.
• Grading: supports many different grading schemes. Teachers have the option to monitor the progress of each student on the assignment where they can make comments and edit.
• Communication: Announcements can be posted by teachers to the class stream which can be commented on by students, allowing for two-way communication between the teacher and students.
• Originality Report: It allows educators and students to see the parts and sections of the submitted work which contains the exact or similar wording to that of another source. For students, it highlights source materials and flags missing citation to assist the student in improving their writing. Teachers can also view the originality report, allowing them to verify the academic integrity of the student’s submitted work.
• Archive Courses: it allows instructors to archive courses at the end of a term or year.
• Archive Courses: it allows instructors to archive courses at the end of a term or year.
• Mobile Applications: Google Classroom mobile apps, introduced in January 2015, are available for iOS and Android devices.

It is a sort of translation of the physical class with the aim of speeding up the assignment of tasks and creating work groups.

Assessment
It can be used for summative assessment or for formative assessment to stimulate reflection or critical thinking. This second option is the most interesting in terms of learning and soft skills development. Quizzes can be performed by students by themselves or during class: the tool automatically grades the performance.
The teacher can also prepare feedback (that is shown automatically by the tool) or discuss results in class together with students.
For instance in one of the cases analyzed the teacher gives students a question about a physics problem to be attempted individually. Then the teacher asks students to discuss among peers about their answers to the question in group of 2 or 3.
After few minutes he stops the discussion and he asks students to answer again individually. At the end the teacher shows the right answer.
This use of classroom response system has been undertaken in a large classroom (more than 200 students) to stimulate engagement, self reflection and discussion among peers.

Use cases/examples of usage: (tutorial)

Strenght: It integrates several Google Applications for Education, such as Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Google Forms, Google Sites, and Gmail, It’s easy to use in classroom, 10 additional languages.

Weakness: Criticism of Google Classroom generally focuses on concern for privacy for students and Google’s use of student data. The chronological setup obliges students to scroll through to find past announcements.

People opinion about the tool: https://www.g2.com/products/google-classroom/reviews

Similar Tool: Dyknow Classroom; Securly Classroom; Classroom.cloud.

Technical and operational requirements: PC in order to create the class; a mobile/PC in order to use it.

License Tool: Google Classroom is free for all schools and is included with subscriptions to G Suite for Education.