These are the slides I presented at Educause 2014 for using Google Classroom with Higher Ed. The first slides are a demonstration of what Google Classroom looks like, followed by the top 10 list. Additional descriptions are in the slide notes: http://goo.gl/cdIUAX
10 Ways to Use Google Classroom in Higher Ed
- Distribute Documents
- Shift to Utilizing Google Docs and Collaboration
- Share Lecture Notes and Presentation Slides
- Collect Data from Students
- No Downloading of Assignments
- Work with Graduate Students
- Create Research Groups
- Create Lesson Groups with Assignments
- Group Critique
- In Class Activities
What is Google Classroom?
Google Classroom is a new product that allows for a teacher to create a virtual classroom space. This is not a replacement for an LMS. While there are some features that may seem similar to what an LMS such as Blackboard can do, it does not contain the features you would expect in an LMS. Google Classroom works nicely with your existing LMS. If your university has enabled Google Classroom you can find it at http://classroom.google.com.
What Google Classroom does is Google Drive management. If your school has Google Apps for Education (your students have a university version of Gmail), then your students have access to Google Drive. Google Classroom makes it easier to distribute Google Docs and resources and also easier to collect documents and resources from students.
Google Classroom is not restricted to students enrolled in your class, this means you can also utilize the features to work with colleagues for non classroom activities.
Additional Blog Posts
Earlier I posted a blog post on 20 things you can do with Google Classroom and a follow up post with 15 more things you can do with Google Classroom. These 35 things are specific to teaching in a classroom and would also be applicable for the Higher Ed classroom.
Guest blogger Mary Bennett works with professors at California State University Fresno and helps them to integrate Google Classroom with Blackboard. Here is her post on 10 reasons to introduce Blackboard to Google Classroom.
Here are some blog posts and videos on getting started with Google Classroom.
Additional blog posts on Google Classroom can be found at https://alicekeeler.com/classroom
