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Major Google Classroom Update - See the new features!

Google Classroom has seen big changes over the summer!  Today's post will give you an overview of the Google Classroom updates.  Stay tuned over the next few days for more detailed posts outlining how the changes might impact your professional practice.

If you haven't tried it yet, Google Classroom is made specifically for the K-12 classroom and is a great assignment management system!  Google listens to feedback from teachers to make their products more effective and user-friendly.


New Tab - Classwork Tab


The new Classwork Tab is designed for you to post all of your Assignments and Questions.  The Stream will only be used to post Announcements.  However, the Stream will automatically create a message when you post a new Assignment or Question in the Classwork tab!  Google made this change after hearing from teachers they needed better ways to manage the Stream, which became unwieldy after just a few weeks of daily use.

Using Topics becomes important with the new Classwork tab.  Look for a post in the next few days outlining how to utilize Topics to easily find assignments!

New Tab - People

The old Student tab has been replaced by the People tab.  Here you can add students and co-teachers.  For students, I prefer to display the large Classroom join code found in the new Settings Cog!  Once enrolled, you can easily email all, some, or one of the Classroom members.


New - Settings Cog

Google has added a Settings Cog, featured in many of its other products.  The Settings Cog allows you to configure your Google Classroom.




Deleted - About Tab

The old About tab has been deleted.  Course descriptions and details can be found in the Settings Cog.  (See graphic above).  If you used the About tab to provide students with resources that would be used throughout the school year, stay tuned for my upcoming post about the use of Topics in the Classwork tab!

Added Features - Time Saving Grading features

I think Google really hit it out of the ballpark with these features!  

Navigation:  

When grading a Classroom assignment, arrows appear at the top of the page for you to click to the next or previous document.  (Similar to how you navigate from one class to another in GradeBook).  No need to click out and open the next document!

Comment Bank:

You can now create frequently used feedback comments in a Comments Bank!  (If you use TurnItIn to grade, they have a similar option.)  Google has added a side menu that lets you insert a comment from your comment bank with just a few keystrokes.  This feature can save you so much time typing out the same comment on multiple papers, or navigating to another Doc and copying/pasting!

Grading: 

If you are grading in Google Classroom, you can now assign the grade (and even change the number of points available) right from within the document!  No need to click out to a different screen to record the student's grade!


I have really just scratched the surface of what these changes may mean to you and your students!  Watch for new posts in the next few days providing more detailed information about the powerful features and best practices in the new Google Classroom!
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  1. UnknownAugust 20, 2018 at 9:17 AM

    Thank you, Terry! This is so helpful as an overview before getting back in the swing of using Google Classroom again including its new features. You're the best!

    ReplyDelete

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