I used Google Classroom to give out unique copies of documents to my students, to provide them with opportunities to respond back to work that they were working on, and to give them grades.
Assigning a unique copy of Google Classroom to students and giving out information is what the solution excels at.
There are a lot of things that need to be fixed in order for it to be called a learning management system. I think that's where a lot of people are very confused in terms of what Google Classroom actually does. Google Classroom is not a learning management system. A learning management system allows teachers to grade with authenticity and doesn't provide only one grade for a particular document or assignment.
Google Classroom only allows for teachers to give out one grade based on work across a larger spectrum of grades. It does have its own limitations in terms of how students see the information. It doesn't allow for folders within the classes, or teachers to group information. What is provided is a list of activities or things that students need to complete.
If Google wants to call it a learning management system, which Google does, it's not. I've used learning management systems that are far greater and better at organizing content, systems, and information than Google is. I work in technology and education and I have a strong basis as to what I'm talking about.
In order for Google to better get into that space, they need to listen to teachers when teachers are willing to give their feedback. I used to comment in the Help Center all the time or provide suggestions to Google on things that I was experiencing or the issues that I was experiencing. The solution is not user-friendly for teachers or students. However, it is user-friendly in terms of it being clean but once you start giving out multiple assessments or multiple assignments, there's no easy way to organize it causing students to get confused.
For a student who's in first grade, who's six years old, for them to use Google Classroom is not going to be something that I would suggest, because they're going to get lost in it. Even somebody who's in fourth grade, which is what I used to teach, fourth graders have a hard time using Google Classroom, because it's difficult for them to keep up with their assignments. If the solution does not have an organizational structure, which it doesn't have, there's no way for you to easily see which assignments have been turned back and why they've been turned back. I can give back an assignment, but it won't tell the student whether the student needs to turn it back in for a redo, turn it back, or not turn it back in. For example, If I want them to see the comments, or if I want them to see the information, I have to turn it back into them or give it back to them, but I don't want them to turn it back into me. It shows up as something that they need to turn back into me on their end, they think they do need to. It's just a very confusing feature overall.
Google has focused more on the teacher's end rather than what the students see. This could improve. There's not an ability to assign multiple grades. I can grade it, but I would have to give them an overall grade, "Overall, you received a 90." Whereas a lot of schools are doing standards-based grading now. "Overall, you received a 90," doesn't always work anymore. What it should be is, "Overall, on the writing part you received a 90, but on the information, you received a 50 and on this, you receive another mark, and on your writing skills you received this." There should be that aspect of it if you're going to call yourself a learning management system.
I have been using Google Classroom for approximately five years.
Google Classroom is reliable. It has been stable in my usage. There are times when it does lag and become slow, but that's if Google is having its own issue. If Google's having an issue and Google Classroom's having an issue, you are out of luck and will not be able to operate. There were a lot of the Amazon AWS issues that we were having throughout this year, that caused some problems in Google Classroom.
Google Classroom is scalable but they need to make significant changes for it to be a leading solution in this marketplace. People are using it because it's convenient to provide individual copies to students, which is amazing. However, there are other platforms that can tap into it, and they're doing it better.
This solution was extensively being used, we were remote working at that time.
Google Classroom supports are difficult to get a hold of. When you provide a feedback item, no one will email you and asks, "Hello, why did you suggest this?" I would assume that they would want back feedback from teachers that are using their solution but it does not seem to be the case.
We have used other solutions in the past, the school district switched us to Google Classroom. The assigning of unique copies is definitely something that draws teachers to Google Classroom and will continue to draw teachers to Google Classroom. However, now there are other platforms that can tap into the fact that you can assign a unique copy to students through their platform as long as the Google email is attached to it. It's not as unique anymore and there are other learning management systems that do it better.
The hard part of the initial setup is that you have to set up multiple classes for each subject area when you essentially see a student all the time. For example, one student, in fourth grade would have four or five different classes that they need to click into. This aspect of the Google Classroom is fine. However, it's when you are in quarter one and you want all of quarter one's grades together, but you don't want quarter two's grades to go into it. You have to make a new class, have all of your students have to add that class to keep the other class open to allow you to receive the grades from quarter one and still operate quarter two at the same time. It gets confusing for students.
My advice to others is to make sure that you organize correctly. You're going to have to spend a large portion of time organizing and making sure that students know exactly how to use the solution. Set very clear instructions around how you are going to assign work, and how they are going to turn work back in and provide feedback. Those things need to be said ahead of time if Google is not going to fix their permissions.
I rate Google Classroom a seven out of ten.
If you're going to use Google Classroom for creating and giving out unique copies and that's the only use you have for it, then I would rate it as a ten out of ten. If you're going to use it as a learning management system, I would give it a five.
I kind of split the difference between those two ratings to give it a seven, only because I don't think it does the learning management system well, but it does do unique copies well. There is a need to set parameters around it.
If you're only looking at it from the standpoint of assigning a unique copy to students and giving out information, then Google Classroom is the best. It's the fastest and the easiest way to do it. If you're looking for a learning management system and giving out that unique copy, there are other vendors that are doing it better.