I opened up my Google Classroom this morning to find the most awesome update ever! My biggest complaint about the updated classroom for the 18-19 school year is that I felt like the Stream was a hot mess of information and that for some of our students, the visual noise was too much for them to deal with. Announcements, assignments, student comments – all flooded the stream.
But as of today, I can control exactly how my Classroom Stream looks. My three options are:
Show attachments and details
This option will keep your Stream looking exactly the same as in the past – no changes will be made.
Teacher Stream with all detailsStudent Stream with all details
Show Condensed Notifications
This view minimizes the assignments and collapses all the content. Stream shows full announcements, but only titles of assignments.
Cleaner view – Announcements are still mixed between assignments, but there is less visual noise.
Clicking on the title takes the teacher directly to the grading view and takes students to the directions and attachments.
Hide Notifications
This will remove everything from the stream except for announcements (and if you have them allowed, student stream comments). With this view, students will have to navigate to the Classwork page to be able to see and interact with assignments.
To access these new options, click on the setting gear in the upper right-hand corner and look for the “Classwork on the stream” option.
You also have the ability to move any items, assignments or announcements to the top in the Stream. Now, if only Google would let us pin items to the top, all of my Google Classroom dreams will come true!
Often times, we want our students to interact with content that we have curated within a Google Slide. Maybe we want them to read a small excerpt and then use that knowledge to label a diagram. Or maybe we want them to work on a graphic organizer. The biggest worry with curating content for students to work with on a Slide is knowing that a student can accidentally delete an image, move a shape into the wrong position or delete important content. Instead of giving them the content as individual items on a Google Slide, why not use Google Drawings to curate the content, turn it into an image, and then add that image to your Slide as the background? It is a relatively easy process. Watch the short video below to see how it is done!
Two years ago I began this website with a blog post about my angelic son and his inability to keep track of assignments, materials, and generally, anything school related. I am dismayed to say that in the time that has passed, not a single thing has changed for him. Some of this is directly related to his 14-year-old self, but more of it is related to the fact that his teachers still do not allow their students to use their devices in any way that isn’t teacher directed. And since they aren’t directing him to use his calendar, he isn’t.
See, we are an extremely calendar driven family. With two kids that are in multiple sports, guitar lessons and a husband that travels extensively for work, we use our calendars to keep our lives in check and make sure we never miss anything. While my son uses his calendar on his phone to keep track of outside of school stuff, he doesn’t use his calendar to keep track of school assignments because his teachers don’t let him pull his phone out in class and they are not yet a 1:1 school were students have regular access to devices. If he were able to access his phone at school, he could easily add assignments to his calendar as the teachers assigned them. He could even take a picture of any of the documents related to the assignment and then immediately attach them to the calendar event, ensuring that he never really loses an important paper. But, alas, this is not allowed.
The district that I work in is slowly going 1:1 and we are at the point where our entire student body from grades 3-10 have their own Chromebooks to use each day. Many of our teachers are using Google Classroom. Some teachers even let their students have their phones out during the day.
But, very few of them are showing their students how powerful their Google Calendars can be. Why are we ignoring this tool? Why not expose our students to as many ways to get themselves organized as possible? Learning how to be organized now will only pay off in spades in the future!
Did you know that as soon as you add an assignment to Google Classroom with a due date that it shows up on a student’s calendar? Did you know that not only does the name of the assignment show up, but the directions and a direct link back to the assignment in Classroom appears as well?
Did you know that students can add their own events to their Google calendars? If their teacher isn’t using Classroom but still giving them assignments, the students can add it themselves. They even have the ability to include content from their Drive and customize reminder notifications. Just imagine; Students can create an event related to the due date of the assignment, set notification reminders that range from a few minutes to a few days before it is due, and they can include a direct link to their work! No more hunting for their work or trying to remember when things are due.
I would also encourage students to include their own events, like sports practice, extracurricular activities, or time with friends or family on their calendar. Since they can download the calendar app, their responsibilities can follow them everywhere!!! (They might not think this is a good thing, but I sure do!)
We don’t need to force all of our students to use their calendars, but showing them the power of a tool they have at their fingertips is essential. If they don’t know what they have access to, they are missing on gaining critical life skills they will need as they try to adult later in life. Give them all the tools they need to be successful and let them select the one that works best for them!
Now, if only Google would let us pin items to the top, all of my Google Classroom dreams will come true!
EdTech Awesomeness 