in this video I'm going to show you how
to effectively set up Google classroom
for remote teaching one of the biggest
challenges of teaching remotely is the
fact that communication between teachers
and students is going to be more
challenging when you're not in the same
room together for this reason it's even
more important that you have a
well-organized easy-to-understand
digital classroom when teaching remotely
I believe you should treat effectively
setting up Google classroom as your
number one priority the reason why is
because you're going to use Google
classroom as your central hub where
you're going to post announcements
assignments materials links to
additional resources and more students
will even be able to hand in work
through Google classroom and you'll be
able to provide them with feedback on
there as well students can also
communicate with each other on Google
classroom which is going to be important
in order to maintain a sense of
community my name is Sam Carey and this
is my youtube channel for the new EdTech
classroom if you find the tips that i
share in this video helpful I'd
appreciate it if you hit the like button
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don't miss any of my weekly updates if
you're interested in learning about lots
of different creative projects you can
do with your students online check out
some of the other tutorials that I have
on my channel all right let's jump right
in and look at how to set up your Google
classroom for effective remote teaching
at the very first stage of setting up
Google classroom you're going to be
faced with an organizational question
about how to set up your different
classes if you're an elementary school
teacher it probably makes sense just to
have a single Google classroom but if
you teach middle school or high school
and teach different subjects I'd
recommend that you have a different
classroom setup for each subject that
you teach so for example if you teach
math and science you should have a
Google classroom for your math class and
a separate Google classroom for your
science class the reason for this is
because as you add more material to your
Google classrooms materials and
assignments and announcements are going
to be harder to find think of this phase
of Google classroom organization like a
filing cabinet you'll want one single
drawer per subject and
then once you get into that subject
we're going to start to set up different
file folders now I'm in a situation that
I imagine lots of other people are I
teach different subjects but I also
repeat the same subject with different
groups of students in this case I do
think it's okay to just have one
classroom set up for the subject that
you teach though if you really want to
keep everything separated it's not
difficult to duplicate assignments
across different Google classrooms so it
would be OK to subdivide them even more
because I teach three separate classes
and one Club you'll notice that on my
Google classroom home screen I have four
separate classrooms in order to add a
class you'll go up to the Add button
click create a class give your class a
name and click create you'll notice once
you're inside of your Google classroom
that there are four tabs at the top
Stream classwork people and grades if
you start posting without altering any
of the settings on Google classroom it's
going to put everything that you post on
the class string as you can see if
you're posting announcements material
assignments discussion prompts your
stream is going to quickly fill up and
become almost unusable for students
because of this I highly recommend that
you change the settings for class work
on the stream to hide notifications so
now that you've ensured that your stream
is solely for announcements make sure
that you're regularly posting
announcements to the string I recommend
that you post an announcement every
morning so that when your students log
into Google classroom they see a welcome
message from you as well as an agenda
for the day for what you're expecting
them to complete for your class this
would be a great place to post a
screencastify tutorial in which you can
give an overview for the work that
students are going to be complete when
you're teaching remotely it's likely
that they're gonna have far more
comments from students than you would in
a typical classroom setting if your
students are like mine they're going to
be doing everything from asking
questions to also just making some
random comments if you totally want to
shut comments down you could do that by
going to the settings tab and turning
off student comments but in the case of
remote teaching I do think it's
important to allow students to ask
questions and also have their peer
answer questions for them it'll be
important to go over some basic
guidelines for how to comment
appropriately on Google classroom
typically I just tell my students that
if it's not academic related it doesn't
belong on Google classroom if you allow
for comments you're going to need to
make sure that you're checking that if a
comment shows up that isn't really
appropriate you can easily delete it by
going to the three dots next to a
student's name and clicking delete if I
end up doing this I'll usually email the
student directly and just let them know
about that and remind them of
expectations you do also have the option
of muting particular students if up
student is having difficulty commenting
on Google classroom in a productive and
respectful manner now let's look at how
to add students to your Google classroom
in most cases when students are actually
in my class I simply give them the class
code have them join the class and then
they're in in the case of remote
teaching it probably makes more sense to
add student emails and then invite
students if you choose to just invite
students through email it will send them
an email they'll click on a link and
just like that they'll be logged in to
your Google classroom next let's look at
the classwork top the classwork tab is
where you're going to be posting all of
your assignments and resources for
students similar to the first step when
you had to think about how you wanted to
label those bigger file cabinets now
you're going to want to think about how
you're going to label your individual
file folders if you don't create
different file folders or what I
referred to as topics in Google
classroom you're gonna just end up with
a big running stream of assignments that
isn't going to be very well organized
for students to create different topics
you're going to go up to create scroll
down to topic and then enter the name of
the topic you want to create your topics
might look different now for remote
teaching when I'm teaching in my regular
classroom for example I have separate
topics set up for class work and
homework that's not really relevant in
the case of remote teaching given that I
usually need to direct my students to go
to a particular topic to find work that
I've posted I'm going to be making a
total shift to creating topics for each
week that we are doing remote teaching
that way my students will know exactly
where to look for the assignments and
resources for each week that we're doing
online learning it's really up to you
how
choose to organize your filesystem but
what's most important is that you create
one now let's look at how to create
different types of assignments you'll
see under create that you can post an
assignment a quiz assignment a question
material or you can reuse a post my
father one I use the most is to create
an assignment you'll see that you can
title the assignment and give it a
description it may be okay to be a
little bit more sloppy with the
descriptions when you're doing in
classroom teaching with Google classroom
but given that your students are going
to be relying on you for really clear
instructions I recommend that you spend
some time outlining step by step what
your students need to do for a
particular assignment then you'll see
that you have an option to add a file
from your Google Drive to add a link to
add a file from your computer or to add
a YouTube video the benefit of using
Google Drive as opposed to adding a file
from your own computer is that it's
going to give you the option to make a
copy for each student so if you create a
worksheet or a graphic organizer that
you want each student to complete on
their own it will make the most sense to
click make a copy
I also frequently add links to my Google
classroom assignments if for example you
want your students to visit another
website as part of the assignment you
can just copy the URL for that website
and then add the link to the assignment
next you could add a file and that would
be a file that you have stored on your
computer not on Google Drive and lastly
there's an option where you can search
for and add a YouTube video that you're
looking for if you haven't already pre
created material using Google Docs
Google slides Google drawings etc you
can also do so by clicking on create and
that will open up one of the document
types and you can create that in the
moment I pretty much never use this
function because I always pre create my
materials and the assignment post on
Google classroom is the last step but it
may be something that works for you next
on the right-hand side you'll see that
there's a place where you can change the
point value of the assignment as well as
the due date it's also really important
that you actually pick the topic or file
folder where you want this particular
assignment to go if you don't do that
it's actually going to show up on top of
all the topics that you've created and
that might also lead to a more
disorganized Google
if you click on the drop down menu next
to all students you'll see that all the
names of the students that are enrolled
in your Google classroom show up this
function will allow you to push
assignments out to a select group of
students so let's say that you've
created some scaffolds for some students
like sentence frames to support them
with writing an essay you can select
just those students to ensure that the
whole class doesn't get that assignment
next you'll see that there's an option
to create a quiz assignment on Google
classroom if you do this it's going to
open a blank Google Forms for you and
Google Forms is a really easy way to set
up a quick quiz or survey for your
students I'm not gonna go over how to
use Google Forms in this video but I
will in another tutorial
another type of assignment that I
recommend you use for remote teaching is
to ask a question if you ask a question
students will be able to post their
response to that question and then as
long as you leave that setting on
they'll be able to respond to each other
this can be a great way to spark a quick
conversation amongst students students
could have an online debate or you could
even just post a question about how
they're doing for the week and have
students quickly respond it's a really
quick and easy way to have students be
able to communicate with each other in
an environment that you can easily
monitor next you'll see that there's an
option to create material the purpose of
adding material would be if you want to
add different resources that don't
necessarily have due dates the problem I
found with adding material that's
separate from an assignment is that
students won't necessarily click on the
material whereas they will click on the
assignment and look at everything that
I've posted within a single assignment
to me there's really no reason to use
material separate from an assignment
unless you have something that's kind of
completely unrelated to the assignment
that you just want students to look up
but if you want students to respond in
writing to a video that you've posted I
definitely recommend that you bundle
that video with the assignment that
you've posted and don't bother with
posting it separately as material
remember the idea is that we want it to
be really clean and organized and to me
that means minimal places where students
need to be clicking to acts
information a useful function for both
teachers and students is the embedded
Google Calendar function if you click on
calendar you'll see that the assignment
that you just created shows up in your
Google Calendar it works the same for
students so it's valuable to show them
how to use the calendar functions so
that they're able to get a bigger
picture of when all their different
assignments are due the class Drive
folder is also useful particularly for
remote teaching let's say you've created
an assignment and made a copy for each
student each copy is now going to show
up in that cross Drive folder this will
allow you to hop on to a student's
document at any point in the lesson you
might find that a student hasn't started
and you might need to give them a call
to remind them of the work that they
need to do or you might have a comment
on a student's work that's in progress
that will help your student make sure
that they're doing the work correctly
the student Drive folder is a great way
to be able to monitor your students work
and give them some formative feedback
before the final assignment is handed in
through Google classroom let's look
really quickly now at the student and to
look at two different ways that students
can turn in work if you've made a copy
of the document for each student all
they need to do is click turn in and
that assignment will be turned into you
if however a student had to make a copy
of a file that they had view only access
to or if you want students to upload an
assignment that they created in another
program which I do all the time you're
going to want to make sure that they
understand how to upload that assignment
into Google classroom to add the
assignment they'll first find the
assignment then click view assignment
there you'll see that there's a button
to add or create similar to the options
given to a teacher a student can either
add a Google Drive folder or a link from
their computer if you start using a
bunch of different tech programs and
have students create things like videos
and graphics or comics you'll definitely
want to make sure that students
understand how to download the document
off of the website that they've been
working on and then re-upload it here as
a file once that file has been uploaded
they can click turn it one thing to note
is that students can actually click turn
in even if they haven't actually
uploaded any assignment the last
important step for setting up your
Google classroom for
to promote teaching is the Guardian
summaries the way a Guardian summary
works is that you can invite a parent of
a student and then the pan can choose
how frequently they will get an email
update about their students progress on
the work that they were assigned through
Google classroom so let's say for
example that you assign something on
Friday and the student does not hand it
in the guardian summary will reflect
that that student has a missing
assignment I stopped using Guardian
summaries during the regular school year
because I don't always have my students
turn in work through Google classroom so
it was causing a lot of confusion
because a lot of the times I was just
posting on Google classroom so that my
students would have an extra copy of an
assignment if my student handed their
assignment in by paper and not via
Google classroom their parent was still
getting an email saying that their work
wasn't turned in in the case of remote
teaching however given the fact that I
am going to be expecting students to
turn in all of their work through Google
classroom I now think it's a good idea
to use Guardian summaries of course
there are other features of Google
classroom but I think those are the most
important in terms of creating a
well-organized easy-to-understand hub or
you can post announcements and
assignments for your students to
complete online if you have any
questions about Google classroom or how
I plan to use it for remote teaching
please ask in the comments below thank
you so much for watching my video to the
end if you found the tips that I shared
helpful please share it with other
teachers that you know hit the like
button and subscribe to my channel and
hit the notification bell to make sure
you don't miss any of my weekly updates
you can also check out some of the other
tutorials I have on my channel by
clicking on one of those two videos
above and if you're interested in
downloading any of the resources that
I've created and show on my videos
please visit my website at wwlp.com
thanks so much and have a great week