Google Classroom for
Online Learning ( Design a platform for learning)
The
world has entered into the era of science and technology. Every sector is
greatly attached with ICT. The ICT tools and technologies are integrated in every
field. As a result, they have huge influence on education. Among those, Google classroom is one of the
most favourite and effective free web service (virtual platform) developed by
Google in the recent times. It was initially released in January 2015 and
stably released in April 2021. It is especially designed for educational
institution and to create, distribute and grade assignments. According to
Iftakhar (2016), it is a tool which aims and supports teacher to create and collect
assignment in a paperless environment.
It is also effective for sharing files between teachers and student. The teacher can post some teaching materials,
assign tasks for students, and upload the students’ grades so that they can
immediately see the scores obtained in the course (Okmawati, 2020). Okmawati (2020) further explains that Google
Classroom enables teachers to create an online classroom area in which they can
manage all the documents that their students need.. But what separates Google
Classroom from the regular Google Drive experience is the teacher/student
interface, which Google designed for the way teachers and students think and
work.
Google Classroom is a
part of online Google apps which is productively used in learning by the
teachers and students in collaborative way (Sudarsana et al. 2009). It
integrates other Google apps including Meet, Docs, Form, Sheet, Slides, and Gmail,
Calendar and Drive in to a cohesive manner for the interaction between student
and teacher. It provides a place for the students to store their files in an
organized and systematic way paperlessly in a room (Iftakhar, 2016).
In
the present worldwide scenario of Covid-19 pandemic where the physical class is
very tough to resume, the use of technology like Google Classroom is just like
mandatory. It provides a virtual platform to establish a connection between
teacher and students. Google Classroom ensure the easy access that enable both
the teacher and students communicate in group or privately for every task
posted by the educators (Salam, 2020).
Regarding the issues of effectiveness of google classroom in relation to the physical classroom and its challenge in primary level, google classroom is a Virtual classroom and an alternative form of physical classroom. The former does massive use of technology and the latter focuses on physical activities with limited use of technology. I think as a virtual classroom, google classroom can be used to perform most of the activities performed in the physical class room such as taking class, assign, evaluate and gradation. However, it can't address the practical activities like experimental works in science lab, attending in the physical activities while teaching and learning physical education etc. Everything has its limitations and see the opportunities beyond those limitations. There may occur some problems in primary level but we can minimize them. As we can see very young children are handling the apps like YouTube for watching videos, Facebook for uploading photos and Tiktok for making short videos. From which we can say that most of them can handle if we take initiation to co-operate with them. we can also educate parents about it. If somebody still faces problem we need to think about another option.
Features:
·
Easy access (create and use both for
teacher and student)
·
Integration of different Google apps
(Slides, Sheets, Drive, Docs and Calendar etc.)
·
Free
·
Mobile friendly
·
Flexible ( use it in both face to
face and fully online learning
environment)
·
Sharing content (including video, link and
images),assign, grading.
·
Reuse of content and assignment in the
future
·
Time saving
Challenges:
·
Work load (Planning, preparing and presentation
of class, selection of content) for many class a day
·
Lack of ICT proficiency ( use and handle technology
for preparing materials)
·
Attitude ( for use of technology)
·
Plagiarism
Implicatios:
·
Educational institutions can connect the
institutions, teachers and students in
the preferred times, track students activities and keep related records .
·
Teachers can use it in both physical and
virtual class for delivering their lessons, assignment, assessment and grading
·
Students can involve in the learning
activities, doing assignments and re use
of the materials
Creating a Google
Classroom
- Go
to classroom.google.com or Google classroom app and sign in.
- Select
the Teacher role.
- On
the Classroom Home page, click the + symbol and then choose Create class.
- Give
the class a title that is meaningful to you and your students.
- The
following are optional, but may be relevant to your personal teaching
situation: ...
- Click
Create.
Watch the video about creating Google class and
adding members https://youtu.be/8PqmIDGc4m0
Watch this video for adding creating
group, add content and assignment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6L-nZGIUTE
References:
Okmawati, M. (2020).
Journal of English Language Teaching, 9(2)
Sudarsana,
K. (et al., 2019). Journal of Physics: Conf. Series 1175
(2019) 012165 doi:10.1088/1742-6596/1175/1/012165
Salam,
U. (2020), Jurnal Pendidikan Indonosia:
The Students’ Use of Google Classroom in Learning English,9 (4), DOI:
10.23887/jpi-undiksha.v9i4.27163
Iftakhar, S. (2016). Google classroom: what
works and how. Journal of Education and Social Sciences, 3(1), 12-18.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Classroom#:~:text=Google%20Classroom%20is%20a%20free,files%20between%20teachers%20and%20students.
Click the Link to enter
the Google Classroom: https://classroom.google.com/w/MzgwMzEwNTY2MjA4/t/all
