Checked into I attended a webinar offered by Google run by Steve Smith to go through the various changes associated with Google Classroom.

Over ten years old, the suggestion given Classroom as Grand Central Station. It serves as the hub for learning and teaching. In addition to core Google applications, there are a range of add-ons that sit inside Classroom, this prevents any chance of data leaks in moving between ecosystems.

Focusing on teachers, the discussion was how it empowers and gives back time. Some of the features highlighted to celebrate this were:

• Teacher analytics to zoom in and out of data.
• Share view of page with guardians to provide a means of bring them into the classroom.
• The ease of grading and giving feedback supported by comment banks
• Interactive resources, including Practice Sets and Interactive questions for YouTube. Interestingly, Interactive Questions allows teachers to safely push out clips without actually going to YouTube.
• Tagging skills and standards.
• Easily export and share classwork across the school.
• Administrators can join a class as a visitor, useful for checking in or adding a co-teacher.

From a student perspective, classroom offers a range of opportunities, such as:

• Differentiation.
• Interactive video activities.
• Assign to student groups
• Assign reading activities using Readalong.
• Self-managed Practice Sets.
• Originality reports that encourage critical thinking.

In addition to 6-step program for using Classroom, a link to the Google Classroom course was shared.

I have not really kept up with Google and all the changes in the last few years as my work has moved in different directions. It was interesting to see where it had come, but also intriguing to considering where it might be going, especially with the addition of Gemini. Using the Back to the Future protocol, I wonder what the ideal outcome of using all these tools would actually look like? I think that the reality is probably that it is used in different ways in different circumstances.

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