(soft beep)
- Hello, and thank you for tuning in to this video series,
which is part of e3's online learning educator series.
This series was created to assist schools and teachers
by providing different tools and strategies
to make online learning success for teachers and students.
- My name is Michelle Harkrider,
and this is my colleague Cesia Portillo.
We both serve as deans of instruction and curriculum.
The focus of our video series today
is how do use Google classroom
as a learning management system.
- So we're gonna give a little bit of background
of who we are as e3 Civic High.
We are located in downtown.
We're a free public charter high school
servicing grades nine through 12.
We're in the landmark building,
which is the downtown San Diego public library.
And our three e's represent,
engage, educate, and empower,
which is driven by our mission.
Our mission and vision at our school is
"to engage, educate, and empower our learning community
"to be passionate, lifelong learners and civic leaders
"that are prepared for college, workforce and life".
And e3, as everybody else.
When we received our school closure notification
on March 13, we decided that we needed to quickly move
and notify all of our families, all of our students,
our scholars, and let them know what that would mean for us.
We have been very blessed as e3 has all of our students
with a one-on-one computer technology one-on-one device.
So this transition was seamless.
Our staff works with Google apps for education.
On Monday our staff reported to e3 to launch virtually
as our admin moved from class to class
to provide over the shoulder support
while they were engaging with their students online
via Google Hangouts.
By Tuesday, our entire school had transitioned to zoom.
So with all of that, our schedule continued
to remain the same.
We continue to meet starting at eight 30
and our school day runs
that our students go from class to class
and they continue just to engage
with our learning facilitators
or our teachers as we call them.
And they continue to just learn and grow
and what we have for the school year
for the remainder of the school year.
And Michelle is gonna go ahead and get us started off with
what Google classroom does for us as a management system.
- So as Ms. Portillo shared, one of the reasons
why we were able to so seamlessly move into the online space
is that we already had in place,
this learned learning management software system.
So Google classroom is something
that most people are familiar with.
But maybe not to the degree that we're using it.
So in general, if you're not familiar with the tool,
this is really just a one stop shop
where both students and parents can come to get classroom
and school wide level updates,
so they can access assignments.
They can blog and collaborate with their classmates
and a whole lot more.
This is really a place where teachers can communicate
and streamline all of their lesson plans
into one simplified delivery location.
- So what are some of the benefits
of using Google classroom?
So we're just gonna outline four basic benefits
that we've found here at e3.
The first one is the communication.
It allows you to be able
to communicate with all stakeholders,
and we're gonna go a little bit more in depth into each one
of these, it's paperless.
So you, especially now in the era of COVID,
you're able to just disseminate so much information.
It also prepares all of your students
for what the platforms are gonna look like when they get
to the university and the college, college life.
So those are a couple of the benefits that we see
when it's streamlined simplicity.
- Yes. And in addition to that,
the system really does function as a micro-community
and this includes only a small group,
or it could host an entire grade level,
your entire school, for ease of communication.
And it allows teachers to create digital assignments
that are really personalized for students
who are performing at different levels.
So we know in general, as educators,
that differentiation is more important
than ever in the online space
and Google classroom can help teachers facilitate
that differentiation through the delivery
of personalized assignments, to specific students
and student groups.
So in thinking about this,
we really have to consider a couple of different ways
in setting up Google classroom.
So there's manual setup by teachers,
which is actually the one that we'll go over
more in detail today, it's quicker, simpler
and it's really straightforward.
There is another method
that if you do happen to have an amazing managed software
group or department who can support you,
they can roll this out
and set this up for you as a district or a school.
This set, saves up time for your teachers
and then creates uniformity across Google classroom pages.
- Setting up at the classroom level,
we have a couple of things that are really important
and it's divided into four areas.
And so Michelle is gonna talk about them
a little bit more in depth.
I'm just gonna broadly go over them.
So the four sections that we really recommend
that you focus on are making sure
that you name each class
when you set up your Google classroom
and naming them according to whatever your platform
is at your school.
So for example, at e3 we use PowerSchool.
So we would recommend
that you align the title of your class,
that you're giving it to the one,
you have in PowerSchool.
And that allows just seamless transition of,
assignments and of being able just for you as the teacher,
to be able to kind of monitor back and forth.
It also allows you to add and manage students,
guardians, and co-teachers.
So once you start to create your classroom,
you can then either import them at the school level
or individually, give them an add code
and they can start to join,
and the guardians can also join them.
They can start to receive that information.
There's an awesome page where they can organize
where you can organize resources under the classwork page.
And so take advantage of that
and then be consistent with the posts
that you're putting onto that stream section.
It's kind of like the Facebook application
that everybody's still used to,
it continues to appear for your students.
So you wanna be consistent.
We recommend that you always have that same expectation.
So if you have your warmup, what are the agenda,
the vocabulary, the homework,
and it's always the same thing.
So the, so the students know what they're looking for
and where they can find it.
And then also it has a section for your grades.
So consider when you are naming your classes,
consider what you named them,
so that they match up
when you're importing your grades as well.
So if you look here, this is what we were speaking about,
the components of Google classroom.
This is what it looks like on the inside.
So this is, Michelle's Google classroom
and that she's sharing with us here.
You can see the four tabs up at the top
that are circled in red.
This is where you see the stream,
the classwork tab, the people and the grades.
And then the four sections is what Michelle is gonna go to,
into a little bit more in depth right now.
- So the very first section
that we see here is our classwork section.
So we see that we can create assignments.
We can do that in about seven different ways.
And actually there are limitless ways
that you can add assignments if you have additional Add-ons.
So there are all kinds of extensions that Google offers.
For example, Kami you see here
and we'll go over that in a little more detail later,
but when you create an assignment,
you can do that for an entire class or a group of students.
So that like we mentioned earlier,
you're assigning things according to ability level
or current reading level or any number of things.
So here you see the third section,
you see the people section,
so we have teachers and so you see two co-teachers here.
You can add up to, I believe, 50,
or maybe even a 100 now co-teachers,
which is wonderful for support of your EL students
or students with IEP's.
So you can have those push-in personnel
with the expertise to help your scholars added as teachers
who can post at any time.
You also see below that teacher's list, the students list.
So once you have given your students access
to Google classroom, by giving them a code,
or by manually inputting their email addresses,
you can then invite them
to share their parents' email address, invite their parents,
and communicate with everyone all at one time
about assignments that are due about concerns on grades,
whatever you'd like to communicate.
It's one place where you can contact everyone,
all the stakeholders at one time or individually.
And here you see what it looks like in the grade book.
So we've grayed out the names of the scholars or students
and the grades,
but you see each and every assignment.
And the central location really gives you one place
where you can copy of assignments and grades
into your grade book for whatever system it is that you use.
- So we're gonna talk a little bit about
how to use Google classroom
and integration with other tools as well.
There are some awesome tools out there.
We invite you to explore them.
These are just the, quite a few, a small few of the ones
that we really like to use.
As you can see, we have Edpuzzle, Pear Deck, Quizlet,
Khan Academy, Kami, Pearson, PBS and Newsela.
I'm gonna quickly touch on a one,
and then Michelle's gonna talk about a couple other ones.
I really love this one, which is Pear Deck.
Pear Deck is the fastest way
to transform presentations into classroom conversations.
So what it does, it allows you to just take your slides
and make them interactive.
So you're making this presentation,
you're thinking about the students
that you have on the other side of the screen, right?
And you're thinking about how do I get them to engage?
How do I get them to just demonstrate
that they're understanding what I want them to understand
what the objective of the lesson is.
So for example they're learning about the solar system
or about a planet or some new stars,
whatever it is that your objective is,
you can integrate a small slide that's through Pear Deck.
And what you do is then it automatically you project it
through the presentation
and then they're able to draw it directly
and you see it real time.
And so you're able to give them real time feedback.
You're able to have these conversations,
and they're also able to see each other's work
at the same time.
And so they're able to collaborate and able to give back.
And that's just the little bit of what Pear Deck does.
So if you're interested in Pear Deck,
please dive into it
because it's a really, really, really very powerful tool
for making your presentations come to life.
- Another tool that also, a kind of tool
that also helps in aiding literacy is CommonLit.
Others, like it might be each 3000, read 180,
but this specific one is a representation
of the kinds of literacy tools that you see out there.
And what you have with this integration
is the ability to post assignments from the website,
from whichever website that you have, like commonLit
straight to Google classroom.
So once you put in your credentials, your information,
you don't have to go to multiple places
and all your different Google classroom pages,
you can just post the assignment here.
It feeds directly into the site.
The grades can even feed over, which is amazing.
It saves so much time.
But more than that, it gives your learners
that instant feedback that they need
in order to know how they're doing.
So, we know that that feedback loop is the close more close
It is the better the kids do
and the faster that they improve.
And then we wanna talk a little bit
about creating a new assignment.
So, that's what this looks like.
So anytime I wanted to create an assignment
and it's full like this,
I would just go to,
I would look for the Google classroom icons,
select the classrooms or pages that I wanted to post to,
put my due data in and just simply click assign.
And so this is what it might look like in
another tool called No Red Ink.
So we know that No Red Ink is an interactive
and fun way to teach grammar.
Grammar is not anyone's favorite topic.
I don't think any favorite subject in school,
except maybe English teachers (chuckles),
but this one is particularly good at personalizing learning
because it allows you to pre-assess students
to see where they are
and then to give them that support in the areas
that they need.
So this one integrates really nicely
with Google classroom as well.
And then this next one is called Albert
and Albert IO is good for almost any content area.
Albert is great for not only AP prep,
but also just accelerating learning.
So if your students are looking for,
or if you're looking for a way to help students accelerate
and build on their knowledge base,
Albert does that very nicely
and it also integrates quickly into Google classroom.
So we've been doing this a little while
and we've come up against some barriers and walls at times,
we realized that you could probably learn
from some of the pitfalls that we've fallen into.
So we'd like to share a couple of those.
The first one is don't try to do too much too soon.
So anytime we as educators find something new,
we get so excited about it and passionate,
but don't try to do too much.
That just means, for example,
don't post the whole week's lesson on Google classroom
all at one time.
This tends to be overwhelming to students.
So maybe just post a day at a time,
it's wonderful that there's a scheduling feature
and you can pre-plan all of your lessons,
but we know that pacing is a difficult thing to measure.
So wait and see how the lesson goes then post
maybe the day before or the block before.
Another one is,
don't assume that kids are looking
at the Google classroom often,
or that they even know how to use it effectively.
So oftentimes we think, "Oh, we're dealing with digital
"natives here, they know how to handle something like this",
but in reality, we really do have to train our students
how to navigate the system and to build those good,
strong habits like Ms. Portillo said,
where they'd come in every day
and they look at the same thing,
they know exactly where to look,
how to read your Google classroom
because they're expecting those routines.
And so the more that we train them to do that
and model what that behavior looks like the better.
And then one more thing that we can do is,
like I mentioned before,
pre-schedule announcements and activities.
So having something posts on a schedule
so that you don't have to stop in the middle of class
and post it is amazing.
It's a wonderful thing to have.
So take advantage of that tool
because we've all been there
where we've tried something in class
that worked before and it didn't work during class.
So pre-scheduling, any announcements and activities,
really does cut down on that delay in the class structure.
So, and there are just a couple of additional benefits
we'd like to highlight.
So one of my favorite features in Google classroom
is the, ask a question feature.
So you can simply post a question on Google classroom
and let your students answer that same question.
You can set it
to where all students can see their responses,
or you can set the responses to private,
but in this way, Google classroom functions like a block.
So it's like a real living conversation,
which is even more important than ever.
Now that we're all online.
We mentioned this before,
but you can also collaborate with co-teachers
your EL support teachers, your Ed specialist,
having them added as co-teachers is wonderful
in terms of getting all minds together
and having that deeper level of support for all learners.
- And like we mentioned before,
the real time feedback is very, very important.
You're able to provide the students with that information.
And because it's integrated with the grade book,
you can send them back any assignment
that you need them to edit,
it's linked to their Google drive.
So there are any written assignment you can give them,
just editing information.
You can send them back just comments
and then they can resubmit it.
And it'll automatically alert you.
It also alerts the parents
when they're missing an assignment
when an assignment is due.
So it keeps everybody in the loop and fully communicated.
So it's beautiful.
It all comes together in one.
So it's a very seamless,
- And with that,
we would like to just invite you to reach out to us
if you happen to have any questions.
So please do not hesitate to contact us.
We've listed our emails here.
You see, Ms. Portillo, myself
and another colleague of ours who would be willing
to support you as you kind of traverse this journey
and figure out how to support kids online.
So we're here to help you.
Please don't hesitate to reach out.
- Thank you very much for joining us today.
And we wish you the best of luck
as you navigate these new waters.
- Thank you.