Google Classroom it is!

On Tuesday evening, we learned about CMS/LMS/VLE platforms. At first, I felt overwhelmed with the variety of platforms we covered during class and in such a short period of time, simply because before Tuesday I had never heard of Blackboard, Canvas, Moodle or Edmodo let alone used any of these online platforms before. As a primary teacher, incorporating technology into my classroom to assist with my everyday teaching can be a difficult process. Therefore, when integrating technology into the classroom I try to find programs that both my students and I will be able to utilize, whether together in the classroom or independently at home.

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In choosing the online platform for our course prototype project, Jayme-Lee, Andres and I decided to explore a platform that we could see ourselves using within our own classrooms and to support student learning. Therefore, we decided to work with Google Classroom for our course prototype project. All three of us have not worked with Google Classroom before, so we were eager to discover what this platform has to offer. Today, my group and I were fortunate enough to meet with a colleague of ours who uses Google Classroom regularly with his students and was able to provide us with a detailed tutorial. While navigating through Google Classroom, we learned how to create an account, create assignments/documents as well as how to invite teachers and students to join the site. Teachers and students can be invited to join simply by entering their email address. Moreover, we were able to discover that this online platform has many valuable features and is very user friendly for both teachers and students.

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Google Classroom is an online sharing tool where teachers, students and parents may have access to view/upload videos and assignments in the form of Google documents and PDF’s. Furthermore, teachers, students and parents can also view due dates for created assignments which encourages student accountability. Google Classroom is a great tool for immediate assessment, allowing teachers to edit student work and to provide feedback. Google Classroom can be accessed from a variety of devices such as computers, tablets and mobile phones. For students who have access to mobile phones, they can even receive alerts notifying them that their assignments have been edited by their teacher. Google Classroom also provides a calendar to organize deadlines and has an attractive yet simple layout.

Although it is still early within the semester, my group and I will continue to explore Google Classroom to see if this platform will complement our course prototype project. At this time, we intend to create and upload our modules, activities and evaluation tools onto our Google Classroom site. By each having access to our Google Classroom, we will be able to collaborate ideas and share documents which we will all have access for viewing.

After reading “Beyond LMS”, a post by Audrey Watters, it became clear to me that LMS has many advantages beyond the classroom. With technology advancing every day, it only makes sense that students gain access to information and their studies beyond the classroom and textbooks. Watters states,

“Ed-tech must be not become an extraction effort, and it increasingly is. The future, I think we’ll find, will be a reclamation project. Ed-tech must not be about building digital walls around students and content and courses. We have, thanks to the Web, an opportunity to build connections, build networks, not walls”. 

Therefore, if we create an environment where our students have access to their studies outside of the classroom, perhaps we can encourage students to be independent learners and to help them realize that technology can be beneficial to their education.

Thanks for stopping by!