Guest Post by Lee Green
When Google Classroom came on the market two short years ago, it was mentioned they were not trying to replace an LMS. The spirit was Google Classroom was working to make life a bit easier for teachers. Today, Google Classroom is able to replace most Learning Management Systems.
Just a few minutes ago, Google announced that Classroom was receiving several upgrades. Among these upgrades is the ability to invite parents/guardians to receive guardian summaries, to allow for teachers to create topics to better organize Classroom, to annotate on mobile, and a few other items in the mix. These tools, namely parents and organizational capabilities, virtually make Google Classroom a viable, stand-alone LMS for many.
Bringing Parents into Classroom
Parent’s need to see what is happening in their student’s class. Prior to a few minutes ago, parents would need access to student accounts to know what was happening. That may not always be that convenient. Now, teachers can invite parents to see exactly what is happening in real time within each of their children’s classes. Parent’s can see missing work, completed work, and assignments from ALL of their children’s classes. Parents have the capabilities to set the reminders to weekly or daily in order to receive important information about their children. For teachers that strive for transparency and parents that want to know what is happening in their children’s classes, this is a massive plus one for Google Apps for Education.
The image above shows you how to get started. Go on and get those parents involved in what is happening in your classroom!
Adding a Topic
I am quite possibly nerding out about this more than I should be. In the beginning, Classroom was very linear, ala Facebook. You make a post and it is on top, you make the next post and then it goes on top. It served to make the process somewhat cumbersome to find what you were looking for. Now, with the ability to add a topic, teachers can tier instruction to better meet the students’ needs and organize a classroom to flow much better. It is a win, win to have this feature.
Insert YouTube Video into Blog
Watch your back, LMS’s of the world. You are now, OFFICIALLY on notice.
