Guest post by friEdTechnology Associate & EdTech Guru, +JP Hale, Tweet him at @haleedtech
As both a Google for Education Certified Administrator and Trainer, I try to keep a healthy balance of safety and security and powerful instructional strategies in mind. Recently that has become a bit more challenging with Google Classroom becoming available for any G Suite users. The feature is off by default and has to be turned on in your district domain.
In this post we will examine the various settings to be considered. These settings are managed by a Google Administrator for your specific domain. (Learn more: Control User Access to Classroom)
Users in your domain only—Only G Suite for Education users in your domain can join your domain’s classes
Users in whitelisted domains—G Suite for Education users from domains you allow can join your domain’s classes. You need to whitelist these domains, and domain administrators from those domains need to whitelist your domain.
Any G Suite user—Any G Suite user can join your domain’s classes. That includes anyone outside your domain in other districts.
Any user—Any G Suite user eligible for Classroom or personal Google Account users can join your domain’s classes
Do you allow everyone in the district access to Google Classroom?
Would your teachers benefit from joining classes outside your district for PD, etc?
In order for users in other domains to join classes, an administrator must change the sharing permission on files. Do you allow such sharing?
Every Google classroom should be managed and monitored by a teacher. That teacher provides the needed Class Code to join or has to send an email invitation. Do your teachers know how to monitor their student accounts?
A teacher can reset or disable this code at anytime if there are issues. They can also delete any users that are added to the class. Do your teachers know how to delete user access?
Do you think parents will want to join this way instead of just getting the notifications?
Here are some questions to consider as you decide what is best for your district.
What are your thoughts? Respond to this post or send JP a Tweet @haleedtech
In this guide, Mike Wallace and Amy Mayer seek to provide you with all the knowledge you need as a PARENT, TEACHER or GAFE SYS ADMIN to get the most out of Google Classroom Guardian Summaries. We sure hope it helps! If it does, please share this post and encourage your colleagues to get on our email list here.
All materials referred to in this post can be found here.
PARENTS: If your child's school is using Google Classroom and has enabled Guardian Summaries, your job is easy. All you have to do is click "Accept" when you receive the email from ...@classroom.google.com. It will look something like the screenshot you see below:
After you click the blue ACCEPT button, you'll get an option to choose the frequency of the emails you receive (daily or weekly) and your time zone. Presumably, this will keep the summaries from coming to you at 3 a.m. and waking you up.
If you don't get the invite, check your email's SPAM folder. The email should come from a "no reply" email address and that may push it into SPAM. If you still don't get the invite, ask your child's teacher to remove your address and re-add you. This will remove you from all classes where you have been invited, but that's ok because you didn't get the invite anyway. If that STILL doesn't work, create a new Gmail email address and ask the teacher or system administrator to invite that address. Remember, you can always forward messages to your existing account so that you don't have to permanently change your address.
If you STILL don't get the email, the problem most likely is that your email provider is blocking emails from Google at the server level before they get to your inbox. This is a problem that neither we nor Google will likely be able to solve; however, there are two possible workarounds.
1. Sign up for a Gmail account here. If you don't want to check another email address, you can use these directions to forward email from that account to your current account.
2. Contact your email provider and ask them to release the emails from Google Classroom. they will be looking for messages from @classroom.google.com.
If you choose to enact solution 1 above, you would then need ask your child's teacher to add your new Gmail address to Google Classroom.
TEACHERS: Your job is a bit more difficult, and depending on the settings your Google Apps System Administrator has chosen, this next step could be a tad time consuming. However, it will also be WORTH IT.
Scenario 1: Your Admin has allowed YOU to invite guardians. Below you will see a gif showing you how to invite a guardian manually if this feature has been enabled for you. Here are some written directions.
Scenario 2: Your Admin has added guardians to Classroom. This is a dream come true! In this case, just go to the Students tab in your classroom and toggle the switch beside "Include this class." You'll also need to decide if you want to add ALL the classes you teach or just this one. Both options are pictured below.
GAFE SYS ADMINS:
You also have some work to do, and as you can see from the directions above, everyone is counting on you (as usual)! There are also two scenarios for you to consider.
Scenario 1: Teachers are already contacting students' guardians. They already know who those guardians are and presumably there is a system in place so that they know when a guardian becomes not a guardian anymore or is added. Considering this, it is possible to allow teachers to add guardians themselves. They may even ask you for this privilege because they will be able to keep this information updated themselves. In this case, please watch the video below to learn how to allow teachers to manually add guardians.
Scenario 2: Your district collects and maintains guardian data and you take the responsibility seriously. You want there to be ONE system that houses this information and you want to maintain control of it. In this case, you will want to populate guardian data yourself.
Before you set up the script or begin the process, email parents AND teachers to let them know what's going on. Here are some email templates you can use. Don't forget to replace the GREEN text with your school's information.
FOR THE REAL TECHNICAL PEOPLE: In order to automate this process, you will have to install GAM (Google Apps Manager). You can get it from Github here and you can learn how to use it here. Once you get GAM installed, please see this example Script and CSV file Mike Wallace has generously provided. This script will work for districts with up to 3000 students; larger districts will need a more complicated setup to mitigate the time it takes to download a list of invites from Google. If you need help with this process, please feel free to contact friEdTechnology for a quote here.
We sure hope this helps! Please let us know in the comments or on YouTube if you have any further questions or anything to add!
You heard us right! Now, Learn how Lucidpress+Google Classroom Can Help You Improve Digital Literacy
The latest generation of students may be tech-savvy, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re tech literate. What’s the difference? Tech savviness refers to an individual’s skill level, whereas tech literacy more broadly refers to the ability to use technology responsibly and appropriately.
So how can teachers best prepare a bumper crop of young Tweeters and Snapchatters for a lifetime of meaningful technology use?
We think the answer is simple: focus on key outcomes. That way, students will come to appreciate the productive possibilities of technology even as the tech landscape continues to evolve around them.
Here are three key outcomes to focus on as you guide your students’ use of technology this year, along with tools and tips to help you do so:
Collaboration
Technology makes collaboration easier, and collaboration makes learning easier.
Collaborative tools are a dime a dozen nowadays, but some of the most impressive come included in Google Apps for Education (check out this year’s new features). Lucidpress, an intuitive web-based publishing and design tool, is also worth investigating, especially since it now integrates with Google Classroom. Educators can try Lucidpress for free just by signing up. This integration means that teachers can easily create assignments with Lucidpress, distribute them, and make comments on their students’ drafts before grading.
Presentation
Arguably, the learning process isn’t complete until the learner can explain what he or she knows to others. Giving students the chance to present their work to others gives them extra motivation to prepare thoroughly. It’s also a great opportunity for them to polish their public speaking skills and develop their own voice.
Google Apps for Education comes with Slides, which is a great (albeit simple) presentation tool. The aforementioned Lucidpress is also excellent for creating and presenting documents like digital presentations and printed brochures.
Conversation
Digital conversations can be tricky, and it may seem easier to avoid them altogether if you meet with your students face to face, but helping students to express well-developed opinions and ideas online can be a springboard to intellectual engagement.
With Gmail and Google Translate, students can chat with pen pals in another country. You can also use Google Sites to create custom websites on nearly any topic, from environmentalism to pop culture. With today’s tools at your fingertips, we think tech literacy is more attainable than ever. Let us know which tools and techniques are your favorites!
Article by Guest Author Eliza Wright of Lucidpress Eliza Wright is a marketing manager at Lucid Software. She's passionate about roller derby, cooking, social justice, and—what else?—content marketing. Contact her at eliza@lucidchart.com or find her on Twitter at @eliza1wright.
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