Unique Google Classroom Banners

by | Jul 4, 2021

This page contains affiliate links. You can read my disclosure here.

I am pumped to let you know that I have built an assortment of Google Classroom Banners for you to use to customize your Google Classrooms with some different images than the default images that Google offers.

It is important to understand that when you change the banner in Classroom, it is going to appear a fair bit darker than the way it appears in Google Drive. This is an assistive technology in action, as the darker tone makes classroom much easier to see, read, and engage with for students with vision challenges.  This cannot be changed, and likely (hopefully) is not something Google would entertain changing.

The new banners can be found in the Freebies area of this site.  There are other useful resources there as well that you may find you have a good use for. So, please, anything you find in that site that catches your attention – feel free to take a copy!!

Below is a small sampling of the Google Classroom banner resources I’ve created.

Google Classroom Changes Coming for Fall

Google Classroom Changes Coming for Fall

by | Mar 16, 2021

Google is rolling out some fantastic changes to Google Classroom with the expectation that they will be up and running for fall 2021.  Keep providing your suggestions to Google via the question mark icon in the bottom left corner of Google Classrom; we have more proof that the Engineers at Google are listening to us!

Student Data

Perhaps the most exciting of the new features is the improvement to the student metrics. In the updated Google Classroom, teachers will be able to see when a student was last active in Google Classroom, what and when their last submitted assignment was, as well as the most recent comment (which are often questions from students) from students.

This feature is a class-by-class feature that will provide teachers with some excellent data for both in-person learning as well as online!

Improved Photo Tools in the Google Classroom app

Thanks, in large part, to feedback from teachers around the world using Google Classroom, they are adding camera access inside the Google Classroom app. So, students who operate their Google Classroom through their phone will be better equipped to photograph (it will be built more as a scanning type app that utilizes the phone’s camera) completed work and easily submit it to the teacher for grading.  At first, this will only be on Android devices, but will come to Apple devices once the Android app is running smoothly with this new feature.

Offline Mode

Many of our rural students who live in areas with limited wifi access already use offline mode with their Google Drive. Now this feature is going to include Google Classroom. Students will be able to access classroom while at school, and then when they get home, their device will have retained the data to allow them to have access to this important data while at home, or away from wifi.

Originality Reports

Teachers and students will both have access to enhanced originality reports. Students can run a report prior to submitting a written assignment so as to have clarity as to the success of their personal writing.

Rubrics

The creation of rubrics in Google Classroom has also improved – teachers can now export their rubric to sheets, or import a rubric from sheets.

Full Webinar

Below is the full 30-minute webinar that Google offered this morning to bring us all up-to-date with respect to the changes to Google Classroom!

Google Classroom Information for parents

Google Classroom Information for parents

by | Mar 11, 2021

As we have weathered the past year of quarantine, the primary learning management system to communicate school work to students at home has rapidly become Google Classroom. Here are a few things you should know about being a parent of a “Google Classroom Kid”…

Parents do not have a login for Google Classroom. Only students can be added to Google Classroom.

This does not mean that you are to remain uninformed. Classroom keeps parents informed via email. To receive the emails, parents can provide an email address to their child’s teacher, and the teacher will add the parent into the student roster through the child’s identity in Classroom. At this point, Google will deploy an email to the address provided to the teacher, and parents must accept the invitation.

Once parents have accepted this invitation, Google Classroom will send regular email summaries to the email address provided. Parents then have the choice to have Classroom send daily summaries, weekly summaries, or no summaries. You will get ONE email per child, regardless of how many teachers each child has. 

What you can expect to see in your summary email is

  1. Missing work—Work not turned in when the summary was sent.
  2. Upcoming work—Work that’s due today and tomorrow (for daily emails) or that’s due in the upcoming week (for weekly emails).
  3. Class activities—Announcements, assignments, and questions recently posted by teachers.

What you cannot expect to see are your child’s grades. To see your child’s grades, parents will log in to Powerschool or the SIS database your jurisdiction offers..

Additionally, we have also recorded a video suited to teachers and parents regarding how to add parents to Google Classroom without violating privacy laws. The video shows the entire process, including what both parties will see on their individual screens.

Need more Details?

We recommend that parents wanting to access the details of their child’s Google Classroom should sit with the child and ask for a “tour” of Google Classroom. This accomplishes a few things.

  1. It lets you, the parent, know how comfortable and confident your child is in the Google Classroom environment.
  2. It lets you, the parent, view the formative assessment comments that your child’s teacher may have made with respect to the child’s work.
  3. It facilitates a conversation with your child about their schoolwork and their online experience.

As educators, we would say that the third point above is the most important point, and often, this is a topic that parents struggle to get their child to open up about. (“How was school today?” “Fine.”) Sitting beside your child and talking about the content, work, assignments and grades in each course will facilitate this discussion without forcing you, the parent, to feel like you are prying and getting no actual information.

If you have questions about what you read in the email summaries, or what your child shows you in Google Classroom, please reach out to your child’s teacher/teachers for clarification.

10 Tips for Online Instruction

10 Tips for Online Instruction

by | Aug 25, 2020

Teaching in a distributed learning environment (formerly called a blended learning environment), has its own pedagogical rules. While many scenarios translate easily from classroom teaching to online teaching, there are some aspects of instruction and learning that are different.

In conversation with teachers, administrators, parents and students, coupled with the educational research on distributed learning environments, we have compiled these ten tips for teachers to improve everyone’s experience when using Google Classroom.

The CESD Resource site (Teachers Share) is a brand new endeavour (#10 in the above image). To ease the burden of distributed teaching, we ask that teachers share assignments they have created (share to Michelle Baragar), and take what you can need from this site. The more we share, the lighter the load for everyone!

Google Classroom Hack You Need

Google Classroom Hack You Need

by | May 6, 2019

I discovered this little trick by accident. But it made a HUGE difference to me as a teacher.

For the past 18 years, I have taught Technology in a junior high. I had my students twice per week for 40 minutes. That meant that my total number of students to issue grades for by November was in the range of 360. To boil that down – I had a HEAP of missing assignments to try to track down. It was HARD. Of the 360 students I was teaching, generally about 220 of them were grade sevens, new to our school, and unfamiliar to our teaching staff. So, I didn’t even really know which students to even keep an eye on. Here’s what I discovered.

I would start a blank document in my own Google Drive and I’d put the assignment name on it. It didn’t matter if it was a doc, a sheet or a slides assignment. I’d start a blank one with the assignment name on it, and then I’d close it down. Weird right?

Then I’d type up my assignment instructions in Google Classroom. I’d attach that blank document to the assignment and then I’d change the drop down menu to say “Make a copy for each student”. (It’s still a blank document!)

What that did was, it gave me a thumbnail view in the “Unsubmitted” view. Students who were taking the assignment and running with it would have typing appear on their thumbnails. Students who were not making progress continued to have shiny white (blank) thumbnails. I knew at a glance which of my students were needing me to intervene. It saved me SO MUCH WORK AND SO MUCH STRESS! This little discovery was a game-changer for me.

Google Classroom – Handing in Late Assignments

by | Aug 29, 2016

Late assignments. It happens. So, what do you do when a student has a late assignment to hand in? Or, if you’re a student, what do you do if the deadline has come and gone and you’ve not turned in your work?

This tutorial addresses how this works, and identifies what is presently a gap in Google Classroom’s inner workings. When a student logs into their dashboard, they do not receive any alerts that there is work missing! Teachers – please let Google know that this needs to be adjusted!! (They are software engineers. They need our feedback on this stuff!)

In any case, handing in late assignments is easy. This tutorial will show you how!

NEVER Miss an Assignment Again!

by | Aug 23, 2016

THIS IS A GAME CHANGER FOR TEACHERS.

I’m serious!!  With this feature of Google Classroom, you, the teacher will never find yourself empty-handed again.  It works for word-processed documents, google sheets and google slide presentations.  (This can also include work that students collaborate on, they just have to choose “whose” document they are going to work on.

Even if a student doesn’t finish an assignment.
Even if they don’t hand it in to you.
Even if it is totally finished and they forget to hand it in to you.
It’s not possible for them to have lost it – it’s in Google Drive!
Even if they just grunt when you ask them what their plans are for finishing it…

SOMETHING IS BETTER THAN NOTHING. And as a teacher, you will never have “nothing” again (unless, of course, the student for-real does nothing, and that’s rare!)

Check out this video. You won’t be sorry!

Grading Assignments and Offering Formative Assessment in Google Classroom

by | Aug 13, 2016

Today we will take a quick peek at how a teacher can grade assignments in Google Classroom, and how formative assessment can be carried out.  While the examples shown are very surface so as to keep the video moving along quickly, the private conversations between student and teacher can be very robust within this Distributed Learning environment.

We will also take a peek at the Google Drive Folder and its contents to illustrate how the teacher has a coy that remains in their Google Drive (even if a student unsubmits and resubmits an assignment).

Giving an Assignment in Google Classroom

by | Aug 10, 2016

The past two blog posts and videos have taken care of the basic setup of a class within the Google Classroom environment.  Today we are going to tackle the very simple task of creating an assignment for one of our classes.

As you will see in the video, it’s incredibly easy, and one assignment can be deployed to multiple classes simultaneously (which is superb for teachers like me who may have 7 instances of the same class – I teach CTF 7 to seven different classes each year).

The video also shows you what your students will see when they log in to view and submit their first assignment. It’s not easy to assist students with their challenges if you haven’t seen the actual process yourself, so I’ve taken about four minutes within the video to demonstrate what students will experience when they access Google Classroom to view and submit an assignment.

Second Google Classroom Tutorial

by | Aug 10, 2016

Today we need to add out students into our newly created class in Google Classroom.  It’s easily done – either by the teacher inviting students (if you have a superstar technician, this may be integrated with your SIS Database [Powerschool in my division])  or by giving students a random access code that they enter to gain access to your classroom.

The tutorial starts out in the teacher dashboard, then at about 2:10 takes on the student perspective of registering in a course, then returns to the teacher dashboard to illustrate how the students have populated a class list by registering.

Introduction to Google Classroom

by | Aug 9, 2016

Here is a the first of a series of video tutorials that I will be creating as the new school year approaches to assist you with setting up and making the best use of the Google Classroom Environment.

Google classroom can assist you with easily creating a distributed learning environment, completing formative assessments and staying on top of which of your students are missing assignments. We will work through those aspects of Classroom over the next couple weeks.  Tonight we’ll start with how to set up your first class in Google Classroom.

Note: All accounts used for these tutorials are fake. As is addressed at the start of this video, a random name generator was used to create the accounts, and any assignments or work that appears to be turned in to illustrate the inner workings of Google Classroom in the future will be created by me for the purposes of these demonstrations. No real student work will be used for these video tutorials.

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