One of the best platforms with which to make lessons online is Google Classroom, which is offered within the G Suite for Education service. Google Classroom can be easily adapted to any type of lesson or university course, but not all Italian schools have seized the opportunity offered by the platform, which can very effectively replace a physical class with chairs and desks. If we do not know where to start and we want to configure Google Classroom to give lessons online, in this guide we will show you all the steps to be taken, so that we can continue the lessons even in the event of blockages or government measures related to emergency situations (such as in the case of the COVID-19 epidemic).
Complete guide to Google Classroom
In the following chapters we will show you what the requirements are to be able to make the best use of Google Classroom (both for the teacher and for the pupils), and then we will show you the steps to follow in order to create the class and start any lesson .Prerequisites of the teacher
For the teacher who will take the online course, it is essential that he / she has a good Internet connection of at least 10 Mega in download and 1 Mega in upload; if we want to start a Hangouts Meet (one of the accessory tools available in the Google suite), we will have to at least double the connection values, but to manage Classroom only any good ADSL or any FTTC (now present in many areas of Italy) is fine.Another very important thing is the subscription of the G-Suite for Education service by the reference school: only by registering the account as professors can we manage the class and all the functions without having to worry about privacy and any licensing costs for some additional services (which will be managed by the school and the Ministry of Education).
In any case, we remind you that the use of Google Classroom is free .
Pupil prerequisites
For pupils there are no great requirements, since it is sufficient to have a desktop PC or a notebook and a good Internet connection (10 Mega in download and 1 Mega in upload). Let's avoid using the connection for other purposes and focus on studying remotely, so that we can carry out educational activities even when we are at home.The student account for access to Google Classroom should be provided directly by the school, institution or university, being completely separate from the personal Google account: we try to dedicate a new operating system profile or a web browser only to access with the school account, so as not to confuse the various accounts in our possession.
How to create a class or lesson
If we are teachers, go to the Google Classroom page and log in with the professor account assigned to us by the institution, we can view the platform home.
To open the new course immediately, press the + symbol at the top right and click on Create course .
In the window that appears, enter the name of the course, the section, the subject and also assign (if necessary) a room number, then press down on Create . The new course management interface will open immediately.
The interface is divided at the top into various sessions: Stream, Course work, People and Votes .
The Stream session is a sort of bulletin board where we can leave messages addressed to all pupils, create and schedule announcements for tests or courses or answer students' requests (who can leave their questions in the personal Stream session).
The Work session of the course allows you to create classic assignments, to create assignments with quizzes, ask questions and finally upload materials useful for the study study (which will be kept on the Google Drive reserved for the class). By pressing the Create button we can access the type of job to be assigned and thus gain access to the task creation screen.
We fill in all the fields, add attachments if necessary and assign a grade grid so that we can carefully evaluate the students' skills. In the same screen we can also choose which students to assign a specific task (to all or only some), so that we can also assign recovery or repair tasks for students in difficulty.
In the People session we will be able to check all the pupils assigned to the class, so that we can carefully monitor their progress and their attention on the tasks assigned online; finally in the Grades session we will have a summary of all the grades assigned to the students for each assignment or for all the teaching material, so that we can also draw an average (as we will see in the dedicated screen).
How to add students to the course
To add students to the course it would be sufficient to communicate to them, via email or messages, the unique code of the class just created, present on the Stream screen, under the name of the course.
By clicking on the square icon we will have access to a version of the code that is easy to read and copy on the student chats; alternatively we can invite students one by one by going to the People session and pressing the little man symbol with the + next to it, present in the part of the screen reserved for students.
From this screen we can add all the students who must participate in the course by entering their Google username or Gmail address (students must have email accounts registered by the school or institution).
For a better explanation, you can see the video tutorial on Google Classroom for teachers created by the teachers of the Digital Team of the Istituto Uruguay in Rome.
How to access the course as a pupil
If we are pupils and we want to add ourselves to the online course created by the professor, prepare the PC to be dedicated to the study, go to the Google Classroom screen, log in with the Google account reserved for students and, when the professor provides us with the code unique of the course, press on the upper right on the + symbol and then on Subscribe to the course .
Once the course code has been entered, click on Subscribe to access the interface dedicated to students, where we will find the Stream session, the Tasks session and the People session (obviously we will not have access to the sessions reserved for the professor).
In the Stream screen we can ask questions to the professor or with the whole class, while in the Work screen of the course we can access all the assignments assigned by the professor.
How to study online and evaluate pupils
If our professor has entrusted us with a task, it will appear in the Work session of the course ; all we have to do is click on it and do what we are asked to do, by uploading an Office document (Word, Excel or PowerPoint), a file stored on Google Drive or any other file using the Add or create button, present at the top of right.Once the task is finished, press the Mark as completed button.
In the same screen we can leave a comment on the assignment (accessible to all) or a private comment (accessible only to the professor).
As a professor we can correct the assigned assignments by going to the course's Jobs screen, pressing on the assignment and checking that the number with all students is present in the Completed box. By clicking on this number we will have access to the evaluation screen of each single task delivered by the students: we will be able to check the work done and assign a customizable mark (base 100, base 10 or any other number).
At the end of the evaluation of all the students we press up on Return, so that we can send a notification to the students, who will thus be able to learn their mark.
The professor can monitor the grades of the whole class (including the grade point average) by using the Grades session of his personalized interface, also choosing whether to display the average also to all pupils.
Live query tools, cloud files and shared calendars
Within Google Classroom we can also plan live queries using the Google Calendar tool, present within the Works session of the course ; once the date has been set on the calendar (accessible to all students of the course), we can carry out the query using the Google Hangouts Meet tool, provided free of charge by Google for all professors and students enrolled in G-Suite for Education until July 2020.
If, on the other hand, we would like to upload didactic material for our students, simply use the course's Drive folder, available on the course's Works screen.
The files uploaded in this folder will be visible and downloadable by the students of the course, so as to be able to deepen the topics or continue the study even after finishing the assigned tasks.
Conclusions
Creating a course for an online lesson is simple and, among all the tools available, Google Classroom is probably the best solution, since it is possible to adapt it to any type of subject, course or institute without too much difficulty, both by students both from the professors.To learn more about the use of online teaching tools, please read our Distance Teaching Guide : programs for online school lessons .
If we do not have a notebook suitable for study as a student, we recommend that you choose from among the laptops listed in the Best Student Notebook guide.
If, on the other hand, as professors we wanted to combine Google Classroom with Skype, we invite you to read the advice displayed in the Skype Guide guide to the most useful options .
