Use Google Classroom In Your Classes

Google Classroom started in 2014 and is a Google tool focused on education. A platform that allows you to manage what happens in the classroom online, in a collaborative way.

It is associated with a Gmail account and offers the possibility of creating documents, sharing information, planning meetings, among many other tasks.

This tool allows managing distance or mixed learning (semi-face-to-face). In this context, the educational community can access their respective accounts from different devices regardless of the place or time.

What is Google Classroom?

We can say that Google Classroom is a private social network between students and teachers. A place of communication, to post new material, propose new exercises or pose challenges that, later, students can post their solutions.

Google Classroom enables collaboration with other classmates, either between teachers of the same course or of the same subject. They promote interaction between students and even between different schools: student-student, student-teacher, teacher-teacher and even family, leading to the creation of interdisciplinary tasks or projects with other teachers.

What can we do with Google Classroom?

Using this tool you can keep track of class work, since it allows you to see what assignments they have turned in and on what date, when they connect or what time they spend working. Students can also keep track of their own progress through Google spreadsheets.

Google Classroom allows for feedback, since you can obtain family and student information through Google forms. Invite families to be notified by e-mail of the news of their child’s classes and delivery of homework.

In addition to sharing content, as we have said previously, it allows us to control the options for viewing, editing, copying and downloading them.

You can share work due dates with tutors through a public calendar using Google Calendar, thus organizing work, events, meetings or other important dates.

How does Google Classroom work?

With Google Classroom , your students are added or invited to your class, using the 6-digit code that is automatically created with the creation of the class, which you can reset or disable when all the students are already in the class. You can also introduce the student from your google contacts.

Since Google Classroom is linked to Drive and Google Docs, the students can create the documents directly from the web or from the application they can take a photo of their work on paper and transform it into digital, avoiding the teachers being loaded to home with so much paper.

You can publish the same thing in several classes at the same time, in addition to scheduling or saving your ad as a draft, thus making better use of time.

Tasks can be easily and quickly assigned, including a description that explains what it consists of and attaching multiple documents, Drive files, folders, images, links, and even videos. In addition, it admits asking the opinion of the students on units, tasks, exams, lessons, among others.

Methodologies in which we can integrate Google Classroom

Flipped classroom (or flipped class) is a form of blended learning, where students learn the concepts at home by watching educational videos online; on the other hand, exercises that were previously carried out at home now become tasks carried out in class.

With Google Classroom, teachers can record videos and publish them for students to watch at home and thus be able to dedicate class time to more practical aspects. Students can access content from home through this platform with “classes” that the teacher facilitates and creates. The student becomes the protagonist, carrying out participatory activities in a dynamic and interactive learning, while the teacher becomes a guide.

The project – based learning (PBL) focuses on the student learns doing. The result will be a final project to respond to real life problems, although what is really important is not the end, but the process itself.

With this we achieve that students can apply the knowledge acquired in heterogeneous and changing contexts, in a way that helps them understand reality. The ABP aims for students to be more autonomous and self-sufficient.

In Google Classroom, students can also work cooperatively, creating projects while also being supervised by the teachers.

By integrating knowledge and skills from other areas through more complex and multidisciplinary projects, teachers have the possibility of working through Google Classroom as a team.

Main image by Piotr Swat / Shutterstock.com