Reflection

I began using Google Classroom 2 years ago as a high school science teacher. I initially wanted to use it to move toward a more paperless classroom. The more and more I played with it, I found out that is was more powerful than I had imagined. The ability to attach videos and add external links to my assignments and activities was a game-changer. I also found it easy to use the comment feature on many of the Google apps in their G suite to provide quick, effective feedback to my students through Google Classroom. 

I am now our high school's first technology integration coach. I was not sure if I would ever need to use Google Classroom again without having students. I quickly learned that in my new position, Google Classroom was a perfect fit. The link I provided for the first bit of evidence was a resource class we created for our teachers to access information about educational technology. We also created an online, self-paced class on how to incorporate Google Classroom for college credit for the teachers in our district. 

I plan to begin the school year next year in Google Classroom. I liked having the different subjects separated as that really helped keep all of my documents organized in Google Drive. I want to get better at having my students create things in Drive and then attach them to assignments in Classroom. This year I made a lot of templates that my students completed as part of their assignments.

Students log in to google accounts to complete classwork in Science, Social Studies, Reading, and Writing. Students access links such as google forms to complete work. They access google forms to complete Genius Hour progress reports.

This has been an AMAZING journey, especially with my students alongside me, as we sorted through successes and challenges at start-up.  My students helped me trouble-shoot when things did not originally go well, then followed things up with fantastic collaboration and support of their classmates as we worked our way through our first assignments together.