This is our sixth Guest Post related to the impact of school and university closings that are catapulting schools into distance teaching on the fly!
Guest Post from Fairchild
My name is Kevin Fairchild, and I am an Instructional Technology Coordinator for a public K-12 district in California.
Watergirl asked me to write a bit about Google Classroom. I’ve been using G Suite tools for a decade now, and teaching teachers how to use them for 9 years, some as a Teacher on Special Assignment, and now as Instructional Technology Coordinator for a public K-12 district in California.
Google Classroom is an increasing popular tool for teachers in K-12 schools. This is partly because of its minimalistic design and ease of use, but also because it’s included at no cost if the school or district uses the rest of G Suite (Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Meet, etc.). Google Drive was designed for businesses, not schools. It works best when a few people are sharing files with a few others. For a high school teacher trying to share documents with 150 students, Drive is impractical. Hence the development of Google Classroom.
Classroom began with a very sparse feature set, but has grown over the last few years to be a nearly complete Learning Management System. Originally, Classroom was little more than a management system for Drive, making it easy for teachers to share files with students and receive work back in return. They have since added a gradebook, co-teachers, conversation forums, organization tools, quizzes, grading rubrics, plagiarism checking, and integration with other systems.
A typical workflow goes something like this. A teacher can create a classroom, and is given a “join code” that they can give to students. Students sign in, enter the code, and they’re in the class. The teacher can then create an assignment, with as many file attachments or links as necessary. Classroom can then create a copy of each document for each student, so they are working on their own, and each student’s document is automatically named for them. (No more receiving 150 emails with files all titled “My Paper”.) Students do whatever work they need to do, using whichever Google App, and click “Turn In” at the top of the page. The teacher can then grade, comment, and return the work. There are other options, but this is the prototype.
In my district, we have been teaching Google Classroom to teachers for five years. We’ve seen the most uptake at the elementary grades. Our secondary teachers tend to prefer using our full-scale LMS, with its additional features, and additional learning curve. But as Google has added feature after feature to Classroom over the years, we have seen much more usage at all grade levels.
Teachers who have been using Classroom already are well prepared for our sudden-onset distance learning. In the past few days, I’ve been working (remotely) with dozens of other teachers who want to get started using Classroom and other Google tools. There are some excellent videos and tutorials out there for learning how to use Classroom, but always be sure to look at how old the resource is. Even when they’re not adding features, Google loves to redesign and move buttons around, so anything older than a year or so is just as likely to confuse a novice user as to help them.
Note from WaterGirl:
For sharing, and for future reference for yourself, you might want to bookmark the whole series.
https://balloon-juice.com/category/health-care/covid-19/distance-teaching-coronavirus/
You can also find it under Featuring in the sidebar (it’s in the menu bar / hamburger on mobile).
WaterGirl
Hi all. Fairchild is standing by for conversation and questions.
Van Buren
@WaterGirl: I teach ICT and over the last 3 days we have been trying to get ready to go live on Monday. One issue is that it doesn’t seem possible for 2 teachers to each send emails to students…is that right?
Fairchild
@Van Buren: If you’re talking about Classroom, there is now the ability to add co-teachers to classes, and each can email the students. I don’t know too much about the email feature since our district doesn’t use gmail, so we can’t use it.
Mary G
I am still not a teacher, but that is interesting, thanks Kevin.
WaterGirl
@Mary G: You are such a supportive person.
Van Buren
@Fairchild: I will keep trying but as far as I know it was the experience of every ICT team that the teacher who set up the account could email, and the other one would get a “You are not authorized to email” message. We received no training or tech support, and it has been very frustrating, but we will get it right.
Martin
Good christ. A group of my stubborn faculty are in uprising demanding on-campus facilities. I’m trying to decide whether to gently ease them off of their demand, or just send the county health folks into arrest them.
I’m not one for half-measures, so I’m leaning toward the latter. It would solve a whole host of problems.
MomSense
My youngest son’s school uses google classroom. He used to complain that his school never gets snow days because they just seamlessly switch to “anytime anywhere learning”. I think they feel lucky that they have been able to keep their school routine with all this uncertainty in their lives now.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Deterrence!
Fairchild
@Van Buren: Hmmm, odd. Might be something set up in your institution. I just checked a class that I’m a co-teacher in, and I can email students. Strange.
dmsilev
@Martin: I give it until Monday, tops, before the County follows the Bay Area folks and puts all of us into shelter-in-place.
Edit. Could be a lot sooner. LA County is having a press briefing basically now on “additional public health orders”. Supposedly streaming on their facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/countyofla
Fairchild
@MomSense: We’re seeing that with students in our district, especially elementary-age. They’re grateful to connect online with their teachers, and are eager to keep working. I’m sure we’ll have more reluctance from our high school kids, but that’s to be expected.
dmsilev
By the way, for anyone who has been vainly looking for thermometers, I found a place that has some in stock (for now, anyway). McMaster-Carr, every factory and machine shop’s favorite vendor, has 100-pack disposable oral thermometers available. https://www.mcmaster.com/54845T83
Mary G
In today’s FFs file:
President “I like to keep the numbers low” strikes again.
Zelma
I have a related but unrelated question. I am president of my church’s council and we can’t have services. I am trying to discover ways that we can reach out and include members in activities. Years ago, I taught online (I was a pioneer; it was twenty years ago) and we did asynchronous dissuasions with great success. I don’t remember the platform we used but I’m pretty sure it’s long gone.
What I am looking for is a way to create a discussion format for our various discussion classes. We’re a small church so these would be small groups (20 max), but I’d like any ideas of what’s out there. We’re looking at open source stuff since our budget is going to take a huge hit.
We are also an older congregation with a striking lack of tech savvy, so the easier the better.
Any help or suggestions greatly appreciated. Trying times.
Fairchild
@Zelma: I wonder if something like Slack would work for your needs. For smaller organizations, Slack is free. You can set up various “rooms” (called channels) and can also have private conversations. I work on the board of a non-profit of 12 people and we use Slack for everything, and really like it
http://www.slack.com
Martin
@dmsilev: I’m thinking the same thing. OC is in better shape than LA, but it’s not like there’s a big ol’ wall between the counties. We’re in this together.
dmsilev
@Martin: It’s coming, sooner rather than later. Depending on exactly how stringent the order is, I may or may not be part of our campus’s skeleton crew. Was on campus until mid-afternoon today; it was a ghost town. Which is what we were going for, but still kind of depressing.
MomSense
@Fairchild:
My son’s high school is having a student or teacher do a morning message video that they post to social media. Today I was working from home at the kitchen table while he was doing his video classes and it seemed like they were doing more check in than coursework. Lots of laughing and smiling which was really nice to hear.
Mary G
@dmsilev:
Fairchild
@MomSense: Yeah, we’ve asked teachers to focus on connection and feedback more than coursework and grading. The longer this goes on, of course, the more we have to shift to doing actual work and actual grading. That will bring additional challenges.
dmsilev
@Mary G: Yep. Was just about to post that. LA Times story
Edit: Listening to the stream now. Food stores (including farmers markets) stay open. Infrastructure (plumbers, electricians, hardware stores, etc.) open. Plus others I didn’t catch. Everything that’s open _must_ institute social-distancing protocols.
Mary G
Mary G
Another GOP senator makes a lucky guess:
8 man shell
What data, if any, does google gather/scan from school districts and students using these products and what limitations, if any, are placed on Google’s use of that data?
8 man shell
@Mary G:
Did “all senator” include democrats?
I don’t recollect any senators sounding alarm bells back in late January and I assume that they would have had they know the enormity of the problem on the horizon.
Maybe they did and I just missed it …
Dahlia
How do you handle teaching special needs students online? Our district tried to start up an online teaching scheme but had to “pause” because they weren’t able to provide comparable services for Special Education students, students on IEPs, etc. and fell foul of state and federal equity guidelines.
Amir Khalid
As we all remember from our own experience, schools play a big part in the socialisation of children and teenagers — in class and out of it. So my non-parent, non-teacher self has a question. How does going to distance teaching affect kids’ social training? I realise this is a question for the long term, and we’re all hoping that this coronavirus-led change (among others) is short-term. But I could see distance teaching catching on for non-pandemic reasons e.g. local governments don’t have as much need to incur costs to build and maintain (and secure) school premises, distance teaching may turn out to have some pedagogical or other advantages over traditional in-classroom, usw. So I’m wondering if any thoughts have been thunk yet about these effects of distance teaching.
Mary G
@Amir Khalid: In a lot of American families, both parents work, so it’s hard to imagine that happening for the lower grades.
Mary G
???
Fairchild
@8 man shell: Google says that they do not track student activity in G Suite for Education domains, they do not serve ads, and they do not collect student (or teacher) data. Google satisfies the requirements of CIPA, COPPA, FERPA, SOPIPA, and the rest of the alphabet soup. Of course, we only have Google’s word for that…
Miki
I was enrolled in a Microsoft Office Certification program though our state unemployment office last summer, and they used Classroom for assignments/study modules, etc. It was easy to use, including for old farts like me. I had to drop out to become my sister’s care giver as she detoxed from 10 years of heavy (prescribed) opiate use, but I would like to go back once this shit show has, well, done what it’s gonna do. The program was well run and really supportive of learners.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Mary G: repost from below
Look for a ‘too rich to steal’ defense.
Benw
@Mary G: once you’ve lost Tucker Carlson (and David Brooks earlier this month), who among you will provide faux-intellectual cover for deeply cruel and inhumane governance?
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Benw: Marc Thiessen, Hater for Jesus, and Jeff Beezus
(Yeah, I know, poetic license and whatnot)
Another Scott
Cheers,
Scott.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
yowza– statewide stay-at-home order in California from Newsome
dmsilev
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: Here’s the order:
Stay home except for essential needs
Mary G
On this date six years ago:
It’s uncanny.
Patricia Kayden
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Austintown father is latest to fight coronavirus
Inside an Italian Hospital (video)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
more on Loeffler
Benw
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: man, that’s the D-league of dishonest and incoherent hackery.
Mary G
$5-25 million dollars on March 3
Patricia Kayden
Mary G
hueyplong
The phrase “sold those stocks before the period of market volatility” would likely be part of a prosecutor’s opening statement. Why on earth does Burr seem to find that exculpatory? It’s fucking evidence of intent/mens rea.
It’s triply insulting that we’re being screwed over by idiots.
WaterGirl
@hueyplong:
That’s the whole point.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@WaterGirl:
How did that spokesperson think that was a valid defense? Like, duh, of course he sold them before the “market volatility”
Lyrebird
@Zelma: If you’re going to be running it, and if Slack doesn’t meet your needs, you could try Moodle, which is like Blackboard… it’s free and pretty simple to use. It’s at moodle.org fwiw.
James E Powell
California governor Gavin Newsom issues statewide directive: Everybody stay at home. Exceptions for essential services, but vague list of what those are, beyond the obvious.
TS (the original)
@Mary G:
And all those who agree with the GOP’s right to rule continue to vote for this party & these laws.
ceece
@Martin:
Martin – I’m at a bay area community college, and i ‘m one of those who wants (a tiny bit) of campus access. Every one of my classes has a hands-on lab, and we use hundreds of preserved specimens and microscope slides. The admin wants us to “move the labs online” (they are all from the english and counseling depts, I don’t think they have a clue what that means).
All I want is access to the lab (all by myself) once a week to film some demos or take photos of some of the specimens and slides, but they won’t let me on campus at all. I only had 1 day of warning to grab what I could before the shutdown.
google images only does so much, and I want to get them what they need for their classes when they transfer. What in the world am I supposed to do??