Online learning is made easy by google classroom. It has included all the features necessary to create a learning environment online. What are the main activities held in a usual classroom? In a usual classroom, there are several things done by both teachers and students.
But the main activities are giving new lessons, homework and class tests. Above all, a real classroom offers the most effective communication between teachers and students as they can deeply discuss topics.
Those who don’t experience such an online learning platform like google classroom yet might think about if it works as effectively as the real classroom.
To them, google classroom is a digital integration that has to integrate powerful features such as giving assignments, marking them, post announcements to quickly draw attention to any specific matter, and so on.
And if we talk about communication, google classroom has a secure and flexible way of communication where teachers can easily get students’ opinions and give instructions individually or the whole class at once.
Whether you already use this great classroom application or you are thinking of doing so, this article will help you to understand how you can effectively communicate in Google classroom. So, let’s start the discussion.
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4 ways to communicate in google classroom
Using google classroom is so easy and interesting. It can be used by school teachers to manage online classes in critical conditions when there is no way to make it physically. Think about the present COVID 19 situation, it is a good example of why we should be accustomed to using this kind of online learning application.
To go into the deeper of the discussion, the first thing is first, get open the google classroom on whatever device you have. If you are a PC, then search for google classroom on your browser and if you are a smartphone, then you should install the classroom app instantly.
Google classroom user interface is simple and easy to use. One can easily get all the included options and their use by looking at them once or twice. Thanks to google for the ‘Stream’ option as it comes like a social media chat box where teachers can post announcements and students can comment and share opinions with each other.
Besides, there are some other ways to communicate in google classrooms. They are,
- Communicating through email
- Posting announcements
- Guardian email summaries
- Live class
Communicating through email
Google classroom integrated some other google G Suite online education applications like google calendar, google drive, and Gmail. In google classrooms, teachers or instructors can easily send mail to all the class or individually in order to communicate or notify.
Communicating through is easy and simple in google classroom. You just need to go ‘People’ option from the above menu bar. Here you can see all the existing students’ email lists with teachers and co teachers.
You can invite new students from here if you want and you can send email to any students by clicking on the three-dot icon beside their email. when you click on that, you can see ‘Email student’ to send mail to the student.
In this way, you can send mail individually to whomever you want in the classroom. But if you need to send mail to multiple students, then you have to select specific students’ email at first. Then go to the option ‘Action’ above, click on that and it will show you the email option to send email to multiple students.
In this way, teachers can even send mail to the entire class to know about the upcoming event, asking for submit assignments, etc.
Posting announcements
Posting announcements is another great way to communicate in google classrooms. Announcements can only be posted by the teachers but students can comment. Posted announcements are visible in the stream window.
As previously mentioned, the stream is a little bit like a social media platform. It holds up to date news and lets the students check them to know what’s going on in the class. Teachers can post an announcement when it requires reminders, about the upcoming event notification, lesson materials, or anything they would like to share with the class.
Teachers can control the visibility of announcements and can also post announcements for individual students. However, to post an announcement, we have to go to the ‘Stream’ tab and we can clearly see the option ‘announce something to your class’. Click on that and you will allow typing what you want to announce in your class.
If you want to make the announcement for particulars, just change the setting on ‘All student’ and choose the email you want to show the announcement.
Also, you can attach files from your google drive or from your device, including websites or any other link like YouTube with the announcement. It is a very good option to include lesson materials as resources to help students to complete assignments or to make online classes more interactive.
When you have done, click the post button to post the announcement and it can be seen in the stream tab immediately.
Guardian email summaries
It is the option that can invite guardians to receive automatic email summaries of their student’s progress. Through this option, guardians can know about their children’s activity in online classes via email.
These emails include missing work, upcoming work, and recent class activity and are automatically generated to guardians. Before going through the option, you have to know that the guardians of the students are using the classroom with a google workspace account.
Because the option is only available in the criteria. If you are using a classroom with a workspace account then you can follow the below steps to enable guardian email summaries.
- Go to settings from the class window
- Under the ‘General’ option, you can find the guardian summaries option. Toggle up the button to enable guardians to receive email summaries
- Before click on save, make sure that you have select the specific class for which you want to send emails to the guardians and hit the save button
Live class
Having such great classroom management options in google classroom, you may think about the live classroom option in google classroom. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have the live chat option to take live online classes directly with it.
But don’t worry, you can arrange live classes at the scheduled time by integrating google meet with the classroom. As previously said, google classroom integrates some other google G Suite applications. We have the google calendar to manage daily class routine and it also allows us to share files and folders from google drive.
Google meet is a popular video calling platform implemented by google two-way and multi-way audio and video calls with a resolution up to 720p. using google meet, teachers can organize live sessions in google classrooms.
But before that, we have to know how we can integrate google meet with google classroom. to create a video meeting or video classroom, we have to take the help of google calendar. We are going to schedule the video class in google calendar first.
Therefore, go to the calendar from the classwork tab.
It will open the calendar window like the image above. From there, click on the ‘Create’ option and set a are in, scheduled time for your video class. You have to add title, description, specific date and time, and task to your video class.
Here you can see the option ‘Add google meet video conferencing’, click on that and your class is included in google meet. Now you can save and share the class in your classroom stream to let students know about the video class.
You can have up to 100 participants in your video class. To share the video conference with others not included in your classroom, just copy the link and share it across email or social media.
In this way, you can engage in video class with your google classroom students.
Final verdict
Google classroom is an all in one integration for online classes as well as distance learning. Today we can’t avoid the importance of using such a great application in all sectors including personal teaching and university level learning activities.
Especially when all the educational institutions are closed due to the tragic hit of COVID 19. Students can’t go to schools and colleges so that teachers have to move on through online learning materials.
Undoubtedly, google classroom is the best online learning application where teachers have all the needed options to integrate and organize activities with students. Besides, students can also find it easy and fun to use while sitting in their home and learning through the devices.