Exploring the All New Google Classroom

Chapter 32: Exploring the All New Google Classroom

Date/Time: 8th February 2025 - Saturday , 12:36 pm

This is yet another interesting post that explores the amazing new resources added in the Google Classroom over all these years. I had an amazing experience of conducting a training workshop for over 50 participants at the Beaconhouse Head Office in Lahore recently as a Google Certified Trainer , while working as an Education Lead at Tech Valley which is a Google for Education partner organisation in Pakistan. The feedback was simply fantastic and amazing. The reason was the way the training session was developed for the participants which were teachers, coordinators , school leaders and representatives from the head office. It was a practical hands-on experience where all participants worked together to not only explore the tools but create content for themselves and their learners. 

It was a two day training session which focuses on exploring google for education tools that could enhance teaching and learning in the classrooms. The whole two day session was designed in Google Sites. Feedback forms, digital certificates, tasks and activities were all embedded within the Google Sites. It took days to create a customised training session for the 50 participants. Imagine being a teacher with a class of 30 different learners with varied skills and abilities. Teaching all learners in the same way is never justice to the learners, considering they all come from various backgrounds and experiences. What made the workshop successful was the fact it catered to different learning styles. Participants had access to handouts and guides that helped them in their tasks. Participants also had access to videos in the additional resources section that could help them in their various tasks.

The first thing I did before starting the session was to create a shared drive, add all resources in one place so all participants could have seamless access to resources. Next thing I added all participants in the shared drive, in the Google Classroom and as collaborators in the Google Sites. When  you add members in a shared drive, you could set various roles and restrict members from deleting content. I assigned the role of a contributor to all participants. So they could edit the tasks. The tasks required input from the participants. 

The session focused on demonstrating how Google Sites could be used for enhancing communication and collaboration in the classroom. Participants could click and open the resources and start working on tasks along with the whole group of 50 participants. The participants have been added to a Google chat group, where they can ask questions, queries and I can share resources with them like tutorials in the group. The shared drive has different folders where participants have access to the Google site, tasks, activities, feedback forms, quizzes, tutorials and digital certificates.

Let’s explore the Google classroom, the teachers were added as students in the Google classroom and were required to explore different resources like adding practice sets, interactive video activities and adding rubrics, using originality reports. This was all new for them. The fact they could connect with their teaching and learning made it more meaningful and relevant. Now these are all new resources added in the Google Classroom which were not added before. They have made Google Classroom a very powerful LMS with unique features. We will look at all of these in detail. Let us start with diving into practice sets and what makes them different from Google Forms. 

Practice sets are a very empowering resource added in the Google classroom. Participants can create interactive quizzes within minutes related to any subject. They can add helpful hints in the form of videos to assist and guide their learners. The practice sets also come with a builtin math and science keyboard which is a great help for both students and teachers. Similarly the students show their working on a notepad while solving sums for solving equations or brainstorming ideas for a lesson etc. The added videos or hints also assist in solving the questions. Teachers can also view the practice sets as students and see how the students would be able to solve the practice sets. These are easy to assign as an assignment to the Google Classroom. Teachers can create as many practice sets as they want. Another important thing is the detailed feedback and insight that is generated by the practice sets. The teachers get a detailed report after the students have submitted the practice sets. The teacher can then create different practice sets based on the results and insights, and this is real time authentic data. 

Now Google Forms do not generate any feedback or insights about the performance of students on the practice sets. The practice sets provide feedback on individual as well as whole class performance. Neither does a google form have a math or science builtin  keyboard. Nor does a Google Form provide space for students to show their working. So there are added features in Google Practice Sets that are not available in Google Forms.  

Similarly, another wonderful resource added in the Google Classroom is the Interactive videos, where teachers can select videos from YouTube and insert questions at different intervals. They can add different types of questions. Also the AI within interactive videos suggests questions along with some videos. The teachers can choose to add the questions generated by AI or even edit and add their own questions. There is a performance report generated when the student submits the interactive videos/quizzes. The report generated provides individuals as well as class wise insights. The teacher can identify which student needs help with which question. Teachers can easily create and assign the quizzes to the classroom. This is a very helpful resource where teachers can create quizzes to check knowledge and understanding of the topic taught in class.

Another wonderful resource in the Google classroom is the Rubrics and originality check feature. Now teachers might have concerns if students copy paste content from the web, so they can always run an originality check to see if the content is original or not. Also it was a great insight when the training participants tried exploring the originality checks. Their findings were surprising. The originality checks do not report any issue or raise flags with content created in Gemini or Gemini Advanced. Most probably because the responses in Gemini are generated based on the users input and the users ideas. But that was helpful. When the content is copied from a published site or source on the web , the originality checks detect plagiarism. 

The teachers also learned how to create rubrics to evaluate and assess their students' work. They could also import a rubric from Gemini or Gemini Advanced. This could be attached to the students' assignments. The teacher can mark the assignment using the rubrics and submit the score, comments along with the assignment. This is more tailored support and individualised feedback which is not possible in a traditional paper pencil set up. Also it gives the students a lot of clarity on their work and how it will be assessed. These rubrics can be reused for different assignments as well. This actually lessens the burden of the teachers. 

Now these are new resources that are added in Google classroom which definitely enhance teaching and learning in the classroom. These were not added initially. Google classroom will have another fantastic feature class tools added to the list in the classroom in the coming months, which will give more sort of control to the teacher over the work students do in chrome books. Till then there is a lot that can benefit both students and teachers in the Google Classroom. 

Overall it was a fantastic training session for two days at the Beaconhouse Head Office in Lahore which was aimed at empowering educators and ensuring they lead their classrooms and schools with the power of google for education tools. It was a very interactive session, where participants created practice sets, interactive video quizzes, rubrics and originality checks for their students. They saw in real time how online collaboration takes place even within a large group of members. They could see each other's feedback. They could comment on each other’s work. It was a collaboration taking place in real time. 

Happy reading! Till my next post exploring the wonders of another amazing resource added in the Google classroom that is Read Aloud.

Regards and prayers

Sheeba Ajmal