Many elementary school educators are relying on digital tools to save them time on planning and allocation of assignments. Digital integration within classrooms is favorable because it eliminates the hassle of having to print physical worksheets, circulate them, arrange for collection and grade it manually. For the purpose of making the educator’s life easier, the market is flooded with sophisticated ERP systems that can be customized to create assignments as per the teacher’s requirements, but they come at a hefty price. However, contrary to that, Google Classroom is free and has impressive features which make it a highly popular tool used by schools across the Middle East.

What is Google Classroom?

As we mentioned earlier, Google Classroom is a free web-based platform which comes along with the G Suite-Education Subscription. This tool allows teachers to create individual ‘classrooms’ and ‘sub-classrooms’ by allocating students and grouping them. For Example: Say you have groups such as ‘Senior KG – Division A’ or ‘Junior KG – Division C’. That’s indeed convenient and quite a few schools in the UAE are gaining confidence from digital-savvy parents. Through Google Classroom, the following is possible:

1. Sending customized class-wise announcements
2. Creating survey forms for parents
3. Sharing explainer videos and attaching documents
4. Notifying parents on calendar events and to do’s
5. Post online assignments
6. Grade students and give feedback on assignments

Creating Assignments on Google Classroom

It is very east to create and disseminate assignments with Google Classroom. Teacher can simply upload the assignment file as an attachment to the message and send it to the appropriate class. There are two settings which can be selected as per the requirements of the educator. The ‘view only’ setting allows students to only view the attached assignment and upload a separate document with the answers to the assignment. On the other hand, ‘make a copy’ setting allows children to edit the existing assignment uploaded by teacher and answer the questions on the same document. Each child can create their own copies and submit the response to the teacher, once they have attempted the assignment.

Teachers can assign a cut-off date for the submission of home assignments to ensure accountability & adherence to deadlines. Children who are unable to complete their assignments before the due-date will still be able to submit their projects, but the assessor will be intimated about the delay and can take action by choosing to cut grades. Teachers can easily access the assessments and grade the document on Google Classroom itself. They can give feedbacks and remarks on the assignment and children can view it in real-time. This makes the entire assignment & grading process paperless which is a boon to schools in Dubai and all over the world.

Steps in creating Google Classroom Assessments

• Teachers can login into Classroom using the appropriate G Suite account
• In the appropriate class, click on ‘classwork’
• Now under ‘create’ choose ‘assignment’
• Enter the title of the assignment and the instructions for it
• Under ‘grade category’ select the appropriate grading system
• Add the ‘deadline’ by choosing a date and time on the calendar
• Choose attachments to be added (from Google Drive, desktop, or video link)
• Select option ‘view only’ or ‘edit’ assignment
• Send assignment to a classroom or a particular child in the class

Integrating Google Classroom with TechnoKids

Before going into how TechnoProjects can be integrated onto Google Classroom, let us first understand what TechnoKids actually is?

TechnoKids curriculum is a collection of technology projects to enable young learners, as well as budding teens to grasp computer skills in school. The TechnoKids learning modules are designed by experts in sync with the K-12 school objectives which is widely accepted in the GCC. The computer lessons are thoughtfully planned for children right from Primary School level and advance to Junior, Intermediate and Senior stages with focus on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) intradisciplinary.

All through the different stages, the teacher introduces students to TechnoProjects depending upon the age and stage of learning. Some examples of TechnoProjects are; TechnoStart which focus on computer basics, TechnoTurtle – a Python programming for kids where they learn to create mazes & games and TechnoWonderland that allows kids to be marketers & create presentations, compute surveys, and design posters.

For Integrating these TechnoProjects with google Classroom, teachers can simply download the project they want to teach & assess the children on, from the TechnoHub. All the resources related to the project are to be then uploaded in the appropriate Classroom folder. Thanks to Google Classroom’s versatility, materials in any of the following formats Excel, PDF, PPT are compatible with the software. In this way children access the TechnoProjects and easily learn, revise and undertake the assignments without much fuss.

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