55 Ways to Benefit from Google Classroom in Schools

Google Classroom is a free web service for schools, non-profits, and anyone with a personal Google Account. Classroom makes it easy for learners and instructors to connect—inside and outside of schools. 

Google Classroom remains one of the e-learning platforms for schools who seek to explore the digital space in school administration and learning. G Suite for Education  is solely designed for schools pursuing an e-learning experience. And guess what? It’s free to register your school in the G Suite for Education

In this post, I share with you 55 powerful benefits of using Google Classroom. If your school is not part of G Suite for Education, then you guys are losing out from one of the best learning resources on the net. Meanwhile, schools with a G-Suite for Education license can still use Google Classroom effectively with great result.

Pay Here...

Benefits

1. Easy Setup: Setting up a Classroom is as easy clicking a ‘create a class’ button and then send class codes to students to join.

2. Sharing Resources: Google Classroom allows you to take a document, video or link and push it out to your students.

3. Create a Lesson: More than simply assigning work to students, Google Classroom allows you to build an assignment. Include a description and attach multiple documents, links and videos. This puts the entire lesson in one place.

4. Make Class Announcements: Google Classroom gives you a place to post your announcements. Unlike a website with one way communication, students can comment back on the announcement.

5. Go Paperless: Using Google Docs you no longer need to collect and pass out paper. You can assign students a blank Google Doc or use a template that your students will fill out. Google Classroom creates a copy for each student and gives them a turn in button for when they are done.

6. Simplify the Turn in Process: When using Google Documents, notoriously students forget to change the sharing settings or to turn in their work. Google Classroom eliminates this issue by placing the document in the teacher and the students Google Drive immediately. Students simply need to “turn in” within Google Classroom to signal the teacher they are ready to have their work assessed.

7. Protect Privacy: Rather than creating a global folder shared with all of the students in the class, Google Classroom restricts access to the documents to the teacher and the individual student.

8. Reduce Cheating: Since the entire class documents are not in a shared folder, the temptation to copy another student’s work is eliminated.

9. Classroom Collaboration: When sharing a document the teacher is able to choose if the students can view the document or can edit it. Creating a document and giving all the students in the class editing access to that same document allows every student to contribute their piece to a class project.

10. Create a Discussion: A spreadsheet can be utilized to collect student opinions on a discussion topic. The ability to have multiple tabs allows for multiple discussion questions. Sharing a single Google spreadsheet with student editing access gets everyone on the same page quickly and gives every student a voice in the discussion.

11. Organize Assignments with Due Dates: In creating an assignment in Google Classroom you are able to assign a due date that is clear for both you and the students.

12. Capture the Middle of the Process: An important shift in the teacher/student relationship is to get away from evaluator and focus on being a coach to your students. Google Classroom places all of the students work into a folder that is easily accessible from your Google Drive. While students are in the middle of working on their assignment you are able to go in and insert comments and guide them through the process.

13. Email Students: No longer do you need to create a group of student email addresses, Google Classroom allows you to email everyone at once.

14. Notify Students Who May Need Help: Google Classroom shows you who has and has not completed an assignment. Send an email notification providing tips for success and encouraging the student to work on the assignment.

15. Assignment Q&A: When an assignment is posted to Google Classroom the students have the ability to comment on it. No longer do students have to wait to be called on to ask a question. This transcends the walls of the classroom to allow students to ask questions outside of class. When the teacher posts the response it is available to all of the students.

16. Create an Ad Hoc Playlist: Google Classroom allows you to attach multiple YouTube videos to an announcement or assignment.

17. Email Feedback: When returning work to students you can provide a global note to all the students or individually provide feedback. Google Classroom provides the ability to post a note to the assignment from the teacher, and allow the student to comment back. This replaces the one sided note in the margin of the students paper, providing a more dynamic experience.

18. Create Folders: What was once a cumbersome process in Google Drive is now done automatically. The teacher has a folder in Google Drive that contains a folder for each assignment. This makes locating student work a snap!

19. Link Directly: While Google Classroom places the student work into a folder for the teacher to find, a student list with a link to the students work is easily accessible directly from Google Classroom. This reduces the need of the teacher to dig through their Google Drive to find the work a student has completed.

20. Multiple Files in an Assignment: Google Classroom allows you to assign more than a single document. This means students can create a multi-stage project and submit all of their pieces in one place.

21. Easily View Student Submission: Google Classroom clearly counts how many students have and have not submitted an assignment.

22. Collect Data: Linking to a Google Form or just a Google spreadsheet (Google sheet) from an announcement allows you to quickly gather data from students.

23. Share with Multiple Classes: If you teach multiple sections of the same course, Google Classroom will create the assignment in each section.

24. Collaborative Note Taking: Create a Google document and designate some students to be note takers for the discussion. Students can collaboratively take notes on the document and those notes are easily accessible by the other students through an announcement in Classroom.

25. Display Student Work: With student permission, use an announcement to link to student work that is available in your Classroom Google Drive folder.

26. One Student One Slide: Set an assignment to be a single Google Slides presentation that the class can edit. Modify the slide master to provide a template for student work when they insert their own slide.

27. Target Parent Phone Calls: Google Classroom clearly shows which students did not complete an assignment. Use this list to make parent calls.

28. Polling: Create an assignment to find out which students are attending a school event. If yes, have students write their name on a Google Doc that contains event information and then submit the assignment. Now you have a clear list of which students are attending. Unlike a Google Form, you also have a clear list of who is not.

29. Share a Document with the Class: Google Classroom makes document distribution simple.

30. Know Who Edits a Collaborative Document: Instead of sharing a Google Doc as anyone can edit, Google Classroom allows you to give edit access to all of the students for a single document without anonymous animals.

31. Link to a Website: Relying on students to type in a web address correctly costs instructional minutes as you try to get everyone on the same page. Link to websites in a Google Classroom announcement and get everyone on the same page quickly.

32. After Hours Help: Instead of sending students home to struggle on an assignment, students can post questions to the class to hopefully receive a peer or teacher response before it is due.

33. Peer Feedback: Share a Google Slides presentation with ‘everyone can edit’ access. Each student is able to create a slide with their information and other students have easy access to insert comments on other student’s slides.

34. Distribute Notes: Rather than focusing on note taking, students are able to focus on discussing. Posting the notes to a Google Classroom announcement allows students to pull up the notes easily and then spend class time talking about them instead of taking them.

35. Sharing Informal Learning: As students discover ways to connect their classroom learning to their lives they are able to share this on Google Classroom. Students are able to share pictures, Google Docs, YouTube videos or links with the class.

36. Email the Teacher: Google Classroom gives students an icon to email the teacher. Students can easily email the instructor their questions. Since it will come from the students GAfE account, the teacher can ensure that the message is from that student.

37. Rich assignment materials—Add materials to your assignments, such as YouTube videos, a Google Forms survey, PDFs, and other items from Google Drive. Teachers and students can draw on, write notes, and highlight documents and PDFs in the Classroom mobile app.

38. Student Projects: Google Classroom allows students to attach multiple artifacts when submitting. Students can now in one place submit all the pieces of their project and it is neatly organized for the teacher.

39. Eliminate Schlepping Papers Home: Having students utilize the Google Classroom app allows them to take pictures of their physical work and turn it in digital. Students on a Chromebook or other laptop can utilize the insert picture by snapshot feature in Google Docs to make the physical paper into a digital doc. This means you can ditch the box of papers you take home each night.

40. Have One Place for All Files: Google Classroom is Google Drive management. Any documents students submit via Google Classroom are saved in Google Drive. This gives you one place to check for student work. When students do work in other products have them take a screenshot and submit the screenshot to Google Classroom.

41. Document Digital Work: Create an assignment in Google Classroom and have students provide the link to their non-Google Digital work. On the turn in page students have the option to turn in a URL. If students create a website or wiki they can turn in their work by linking to it in Classroom.

42. Students Create Google Docs: On the ‘turn in’ page for students, clicking ‘create’ allows students to start a new Google Document. This document is automatically attached in Google Classroom and titled the same as the assignment. The document title also is appended with the student’s name and saved in the assignment folder in Google Drive.

43. Clearly Identify Student Work: When a document is shared with students as “Each student gets a copy” the new document shares the title of the template document and the student’s name is appended to the document title. Looking in the assignment Google Drive folder it is easy to identify which document belongs to which student.

44. View Assignments: Google Classroom provides the teacher and student a list of assignments assigned. This makes it easy for students to find all the assignments they need to be working on. Clicking on “View All” the assignments are separated by ones the student needs “To-Do” and are “Done.”

45. Virtual Office Hours: Obtain the permalink to a Google Hangout and link to it in the ‘About’ page of Google Classroom.

46. Collaborate with Peers (PLC’s): Teachers can join a classroom as a student. This allows a grade level or subject area team to create a Google Classroom for the teacher group. Meeting notes, data and other documents can be linked and shared from Google Classroom. Teachers can submit their classroom results from benchmarks or other projects by using the “TURN IN” button in Classroom.

47. Better organization—Students can see assignments on the Work page, in the class stream, or on the class calendar. All class materials are automatically filed into Google Drive folders.

48. Works with apps you use—Classroom works with Google Docs, Calendar, Gmail, Drive, and Forms.

49. Affordable and secure—Classroom is free. Classroom contains no ads, never uses your content or student data for advertising purposes.

50. Teach together—Co-teach a course with up to 20 other instructors

51. Transfer grades—Export final grades to Google Sheets or to a CSV file for upload elsewhere.

52. Integrate with other favorite teaching tools—Sync your existing Classroom classes with partner applications.

53. Set permissions—Enable or disable Classroom for all users, specific organizational units, and other G Suite for Education school districts. Also determine which teachers can create and manage classes.

54. Access anytime, anywhere—Access Classroom on the web or via the Android and iOS Classroom mobile apps

55. Virtual Faculty Meetings: The principal can ask all of the teachers to join a Google Classroom. Short videos can be linked in the Classroom to facilitate a flipped approach to faculty meetings. Links to Google Forms can be provided to have teachers provide data or respond to polling questions. Different departments can post announcements to the stream to share their news.

Now, your school can be part of the e-learning global project, and that, on a low-cost budget.

Your school can as well register on the ongoing #TeacherTeachTech digital training programs powered by the EduTEaCHAfrica.