Google Classroom- Who is creating their own online courses?

[Mandylubug]

Hey guys! It has been a bit since I have posted but I do love this forum. Y'all are always so knowledgable..

 

Anyway, I would love to hear from any one that is utilizing Google Classroom to aid in your children and their courses. We have really enjoyed the DIVE math format of lectures and then textbook assignments.. and my boys are utilizing their Biology course that also incorporates Quizlet, videos and labs in addition to a textbook spine..

 

So, I am planning on creating a Google Classroom for my girls, utilizing their Life Science text as spine, and incorporating Quizlet, Google Forms for review questions and tests..and linking to supplemental youtube videos of each topic..

 

Would love recommendations, words of wisdom, etc..

[SoCal_Bear]

I use it for my science class that I teach at my co-op. It's not worth my time to do that for just my family. However it is a good platform for organizing a class and scheduling. There's nothing wrong with you doing that if you enjoy setting things up that way. For our own studies, we are more open and go. It's quick enough for me to just let him work through quizlet or go through a youtube playlist.

 

Edited September 2, 2017 by calbear

[Mandylubug]

I use it for my science class that I teach at my co-op. It's not worth my time to do that for just my family. However it is a good platform for organizing a class and scheduling. There's nothing wrong with you doing that if you enjoy setting things up that way. For own on studies, we are more open and go. It's quick enough for me to just let him work through quizlet or go through a youtube playlist.

Thanks. I actually set it up today. I have twins that are working on the same subject and sharing a textbook. So one is always waiting for their turn. We had been doing the next thing plus me digging here or there and showing them a video. And juggling both of them and their siblings doing other things and remembering who has completed what, it's nice to have it planned out digitally and they can work ahead while waiting to read or move on to another topic without me having to remember to show one of them a video about the topic.

 

This just helps me preplan it a bit. I have all of their work for chapter four planned out. Only took me maybe an hour to plan it out and that included my learning curve. Two forms for their review questions. Two informative videos and this chapter quizlet list and end of chapter review all linked within the stream. With them being dyslexic, computer work and typing their work specifically is fantastic for them when incorporated with reading from a book. It is the perfect balance.

 

I will just keep digging for youtubers to subscribe to for me to dig deeper for them.

Edited September 2, 2017 by Mandylubug

[SkateLeft]

I use it for everything. With my older kids, I used OneNote, then switched to Trello for the boys, but last year I jumped to Google Classroom. It's a perfect fit for my youngest, especially. He has special needs (he doesn't have a learning disability), and uses Google docs for the majority of his written work. I already create his written assignments in docs or on Google Slides and we collaborate through Drive, so using Google Classroom was a pretty natural transition.

 

For my older son, who only has a few courses at home with me, I have each course in a different classroom. I put the syllabus in the about section for each class, along with links to related websites we'll use all semester. Then each course has topics labeled Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, etc. I transfer the weekly assignments from my syllabus to a Google Slides template and post it as an assignment with the correct week as the topic with Friday as the due date. I use the "schedule" feature to set up future weeks. For his stuff, I plan in 18 week semesters.

 

For my younger son, I just have one class for everything. He also has assignments listed by weekly topics, and a topic for daily work. The about section has links to documents with course related passwords, and curriculum course sites and his reading log (created in Google forms, so the results go straight into a Google sheet). 

 

I hope this makes sense. It was super fast and easy to set up, and it works really well for us! I'm a huge nerd. :D

[Mandylubug]

I use it for everything. With my older kids, I used OneNote, then switched to Trello for the boys, but last year I jumped to Google Classroom. It's a perfect fit for my youngest, especially. He has special needs (he doesn't have a learning disability), and uses Google docs for the majority of his written work. I already create his written assignments in docs or on Google Slides and we collaborate through Drive, so using Google Classroom was a pretty natural transition.

 

For my older son, who only has a few courses at home with me, I have each course in a different classroom. I put the syllabus in the about section for each class, along with links to related websites we'll use all semester. Then each course has topics labeled Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, etc. I transfer the weekly assignments from my syllabus to a Google Slides template and post it as an assignment with the correct week as the topic with Friday as the due date. I use the "schedule" feature to set up future weeks. For his stuff, I plan in 18 week semesters.

 

For my younger son, I just have one class for everything. He also has assignments listed by weekly topics, and a topic for daily work. The about section has links to documents with course related passwords, and curriculum course sites and his reading log (created in Google forms, so the results go straight into a Google sheet). 

 

I hope this makes sense. It was super fast and easy to set up, and it works really well for us! I'm a huge nerd. :D

 

makes great sense. So glad to hear it is working well for you, too :) I showed my girls next weeks set up for them and they seem excited about it all being together for them in one spot. It doesn't seem like it will take me any more time than usual, just a different way of organizing it.

 

thanks for sharing how you are using it. I haven't used Google Slides for anything as of late. But nice to know it works well.

[8filltheheart]

Sounds like a techie version of a lesson planner. ;)

[Carrousel]

I'm using google classroom for a co op life science class I'm teaching. I really like the set up and hope it will help the students complete their homework easily and independently. I'd love to see how other homeschoolers or co op classes ar setting it up and what features you're using, if anyone wants to exchange class codes and compare notes.

[MarkT]

Does each student have to have a Gmail/Google account to login?

[Mandylubug]

Does each student have to have a Gmail/Google account to login?

Yes

[fairfarmhand]

I use it for several things. My 7th graders history and science classes I set up and she can do them do her iPad. I can check her work on my phone! And I love it! Also, I have it set up for my drama class. We have class discussions and I post assignments and script changes. It's so fun!

 

I love linking it to google forms. I test my dd by using google forms. She sometimes takes photos of her work to submit the assignments. I feel it will be a good bridge to the virtual school I'll enroll her in in the 9th grade.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[MamaSprout]

Old thread! We've used Google Classroom quite a bit this year and it has been in the "surprisingly useful" category. We're using it mostly as a place to keep portfolio worthy items, digital resources and schedules, but I also like how I can drag and drop assignments on Google Calendar if I need to change a due date on a larger assignment like a paper. I don't keep daily homework grades there, but I suppose you could. We don't use any online classes and I work, with dd sometimes coming with me and sometimes going with DH. We aren't losing papers as much now, and if she needs to reprint an assignment, it's accessible on any computer.

I also have a "class" for just transcript and planning materials and as a place to park things that don't have a class yet. I've already gone in for next year and uploaded all of the extra resource videos and links for most of dd's courses I plan to use so I don't have to worry about losing links, etc, since I'm in the middle of switching computers.

Dd likes to do her math homework on a whiteboard, so I've been snapping a photo once a week or so, creating an assignment "Work Sample. Holt Geometry Section ..." and having her "turn in" the photo so we have more than a handful of tests at the end of the year.

It probably would not have been useful to us before high school, but I really like it now. It's especially handy for things like Art and Health where we're using lots of resources over a longer period of time to add up to a high school credit. I can just drop things in or document them as dd finishes them.

[Momto4inSoCal]

I had no idea this existed! I'm going to try this for next year. We tried one note this year but one of my files was corrupted and I was never able to fix it. I've been wanting a place that my kids can log in and see all of the work and notes I have for them. This sounds like it will be perfect. We already use google drive and google docs. I've also considered planning using google task so this would hopefully integrate well with that. 

[MamaSprout]

I don't think it integrates with task (but I keep finding things it does or extensions others have made). Since you can turn on the classes to see assignments in calendar, you could set up your 'do the next thing' courses as a reoccurring event in tasks and your kids could see every thing else in the week or task view of calendar, and everything would be on one screen. I think it's pretty easy to repeat an assignment in classroom, too.  I need to play with that just to see.

We still use a spiral notebook for daily assignments because I like paper for to do lists.

ETA: I just played with tasks, and I guess it doesn't do reoccurring task, but Google Calendar does, which could be printed. I wonder if there's a way that could be sent to Google Keep?

[EKS]

I'm using Google Classroom for my son.  Since he has to do his homeschool work at school on Mondays, it helps keep everything available to him.

[PeachyDoodle]

We've been using it for a few weeks now, and I love it! Right now, I only have it set up for history and science assignments. Since dd got a Chromebook for Christmas, it's the perfect way for me to share online links that I want her to explore. We didn't have a good way to do that before -- usually I just pulled up the website and let her borrow my laptop, but that was a pain. Now I throw all kinds of cool documentaries and articles and web pages into Classroom as I come across them so that she can delve into things further that pique her interest. It's easy to denote which ones she *has* to do and which are time/interest permitting.

I also love that she can do a written assignment in Google Docs, submit it to me for review, and I can make notes and return it to her, back and forth for as long as we need until it's complete. I know this is possible in other applications, but I really like that I can just check Google to see if something is completed when *I* have time to look at it. DD was not always great about printing and turning in assignments, and Classroom makes it much easier for her to submit when she's finished. I love that I don't have to nag her as much.

Next year I expect we will get rid of our paper assignment sheet altogether and move almost all of our assignments into Classroom.