Google Classroom is a robust solution for teachers and educators’ looking to leverage all that modern technology has to offer their students, but can it be used with an interactive whiteboard effectively?
Designed from the ground up to streamline your ability to assign work and effortlessly facilitate collaboration between your students, and to make communication between your students, yourself, and any staff or aids you may have working with you. This is an incredible way to teach your students more efficiently using everything that e-learning tools like this bring to the table.
Combine Google Classroom with interactive whiteboard technology, and you’re talking about something extraordinary!
This kind of approach can produce an “always available” digital classroom environment that allows your students to learn at their own pace outside of the traditional class time. It also helps you to work paperless while at the same time leveraging improved tools for communication, scoring, and tracking the progress of each student across a variety of different vital metrics.
Effortless to get set-up, teachers and educators can have a Google Classroom up and running in just a few minutes. 100% free of charge for schools and teachers, you won’t have to pay a single cent to make the most of all that Google Classroom has to offer.
Of course, teachers and educators looking to get the most out of this tech education tool are going to want to leverage the inside information highlighted below. Use these ‘tips and tricks’ to get the most out of your Google Classroom account, and you’ll be able to prepare your students better than ever before!
1. Setup Google Classroom for work with a SMART Board or interactive whiteboard solution
While you’ll want to make sure that you go through the initial setup process that gets your digital Google Classroom up and running (with all of your students and assignments added). You’ll want to make sure that your digital classroom can interface directly with any SMART Board or interactive whiteboards that you are utilising in the classroom.
Google Classroom creates a more seamless approach to education, keeps your curriculum on track, and guarantees that your students are always able to leverage the lesson plans and resources they’ve learned in the classroom as part of their digital Google Classroom environment.
2. Integrate Google Drive with Google Classroom
You can submit assignments and work through the Classroom interface, which is also saved in the cloud as part of the Google Classroom platform. You can also link these assignments and work submitted with your own Google Drive for a more detailed storage solution. This will also help to keep you organised and make it more accessible for any of the other educators or teacher aides who might be working with you.
3. Encourage students to participate in the built-in communication tools
Researchers have long stated that the best way to learn something new is to help teach it to someone else, and you’ll be able to help your students do precisely that with Google Classroom. By utilising the built-in communication tools, this will allow them to ask questions that their fellow students can answer for extra credit as well.
Be sure to encourage ALL of your students to participate and answer these questions whenever possible, even if they have been explained by other students previously, to get them to engage with the material you are teaching.
4. Dial back the standard email notification settings
Right out of the box Google Classroom is going to alert your educators and your teachers about pretty much everything and anything that gets changed, modified, or added to the online environment. The issue will increase if you have a sizable class (or multiple sizable classes) working with this technology.
The alerts will be almost nonstop and incessant, which is a distraction you don’t want or need. Play around with the notification settings to find something that suits your specific needs, and you’ll be a lot happier.
5. Use the built-in scheduling and tracking tools to keep your coursework on track
One of the coolest things about the Google Classroom platform, mainly when used with a SMART board, is the ability to leverage the scheduling and tracking tools. You’ll be able to set up your entire curriculum up front before school even begins in the digital environment. You’ll be able to “drip feed” assignments, lesson plans, and materials across the online platform as well as your classroom without having to tinker with things throughout the year.
You’ll also be able to track when your students are submitting their work, helping to keep them on track and get a notification if work has been sent late, which makes for a more efficient way of working.
6. Bump essential notifications to the top of all pages
There are a lot of tools that allow you, your fellow teachers and educators, and even students you give exclusive access to the opportunity to “bump” essential messages, announcements, or changes to the Google Classroom environment to the top of every single page. You’ll want to use this tool judiciously to spread news, alerts, or make your class aware of any critical announcements in the digital environment and on your SMART Board.
7. Save time with the grading
One of the most significant benefits of a interactive whiteboard solution, as well as its tight integration with Google Classroom, is how easy technology makes the submission of reports, homework, quizzes, tests, and special assignments, and how it streamlines the grading process as well. You’ll be able to create your assignments inside of the Google Classroom environment, the kinds of tasks that can “self-grade” themselves as your students submit their answers and their work.
8. Maintain and share a digital resources library for fellow educators and students
Digital learning resources and digital e-learning tools are becoming a lot more popular today, especially with the proliferation of large-format smartphones and tablets in the classroom. These kinds of resources can be kept up-to-date and current in an effortless way that traditional textbooks and other resources cannot. You’ll want to use the library tools built into the Google Classroom to help maintain and share your own digital resources library with your fellow educators and students.
9. Record in-class lessons to share with students and future classes
The video technology available in some of the best SMART Board options out there today can help you to record, upload effortlessly, and share in classroom work and lesson plans. Smart teachers and educators will be able to use this tech education tool to not only critique their own teaching skills and approach but will be able to share these resources with their students and future classes to help make sure that no lesson plan gets lost in the shuffle.
10. Collaborate with other teachers, educators and schools to leverage Google Classroom better
The online community of teachers and educators is very, very positive towards using new technology like the Google Classroom platform and Smart Boards in particular, and it’s easy to see why.
By diving headfirst into this online community, you’ll be able to get the most out of modern technology to improve the education your students understand. However, you’ll also be able to pick up other tips, tricks, add-ons, plug-ins, and digital resources that you can effortlessly utilise (or gently modify) to improve your lesson plans, curriculum and teaching skills.
If you would like to see how an interactive whiteboard might fit into your school call us on 1300 139292