Schools today are giving and receiving too much paperwork. Teachers, parents, and students are on overload with assignments. Just Google the words classroom management and you will get a world of suggestions and programs on managing a classroom. Many school districts have programs installed that help parents and teachers keep records on days absent, grades, rosters, schedules, lesson plans, assignments, medical records, and state reports. Much of which require time away from daily classroom lessons.
Parents and students have to spend time looking up information for each class along with helping students with nightly homework assignments. There is nothing worse than helping your child with an assignment only to find that it was never turned in because it was lost on the bus, left in Dad’s car, or did not even make it home to complete.
It seems that Google Classroom has an answer to classroom woes and homework assignment agony. They released a new tool that will free up teachers to spend more time working with students – or so that is Google’s claim – Google Apps for Education.
Google spent a year working with teachers and discovered that classroom management was the most important issue. Teachers were bogged down with ‘other things’ according to Yeskel, a former high school math teacher. He says, “The goal of Classroom is to make the things that should be simple, simple.”
Parents, students, and teachers with computers and tablets will be able to click on Google Classroom to compete and submit assignments.
Previously Google was involved in a lawsuit for scanning the contents of emails sent and received by students using Apps for Education. There was no proof that the data was used to target ads to users unless they choose to receive them.
In Education Week, Bram Bout, the director of Google Apps for Education said that “ads in Gmail are turned off by default for Google Apps for Education and we have no plans to change that in the future.” In addressing the concerns the company promises to be more cautious. “Because we’re dealing with sensitive data, we’re going to be very deliberate how it gets passed and shared.”
Schools are already involved with Google Apps:
• In southern New York, Clarkstown Central School District with 8,600 students was one of the first to adopt Google Apps for education. Educators found two main benefits: an increase of student engagement and improved classroom organization.
• Bridgeport Public Schools in Connecticut have used Google Apps and are ready to increase use this new school year.
• South Carolina’s Richland School District that, includes about 27,000 users of Google Apps. Richland, located in Columbia moved from Microsoft Office to OpenOffice and then to Google Apps due to transition problems.
There is no doubt that teachers and parents need to better use their time when completing and reviewing assignments. I’m aware that teachers are reluctant to take on what they may consider a new ‘fad’. But, if I were a classroom teacher, I would have taken the challenge and tried Google Classroom. If it would give me more instructional time with my students, then I’m there! As a principal, and Google Classroom helped me to organize meetings and teacher professional development classes, then I would give it a chance. I have learned to accept change and to try to keep the focus on the focus – educating students.
I would welcome any feedback concerning Google Classroom and this blog.
