In the ever poetic words of Jim Morrison, This is the end. Beautiful friend. This is the end. It's June 4th, and summer is on the horizon. Many of you have a routine for cleaning up your physical classroom, which is super, but you mustn't neglect your Google Classroom. Trust me, you'll thank me in August when you drag your tanned, relaxed body back to school.
Below you will find a few simple steps that will help clear that cloudy qi of yours. Let's get started.
Tip #1 - Return all student work
Once students are finished working on an assignment, they turn it in. You then look it over, provide feedback and grade the darned thing. At that point, you should return the document back to the student. Hoarding documents isn't anything to brag about, people. Make sure you return the work. Here's why.
When a student turns in an assignment, you are now the owner of that document, and the student is relegated to view only rights. Once you return the work, the student again takes over ownership of the document. If, down the road, you decide to clean up your Drive and delete some files, any files not returned to students properly will be deleted from your Drive and theirs. That's bad news. Keep it proper.
Watch this snappy little video to learn how to return student work.
Tip #2 - Create a Class Template for Next Year
Technology must allow us to work smarter not harder. Google Classroom has a feature that does just that. This feature is the "copy a class" option, and I highly recommend it. To reuse work you created in a class, you can copy a class. Copying also helps you save time when you have multiple sections of the same class.
Items that copy
The copied class keeps this information from the original class:
Below you will find a few simple steps that will help clear that cloudy qi of yours. Let's get started.
Tip #1 - Return all student work
Once students are finished working on an assignment, they turn it in. You then look it over, provide feedback and grade the darned thing. At that point, you should return the document back to the student. Hoarding documents isn't anything to brag about, people. Make sure you return the work. Here's why.
When a student turns in an assignment, you are now the owner of that document, and the student is relegated to view only rights. Once you return the work, the student again takes over ownership of the document. If, down the road, you decide to clean up your Drive and delete some files, any files not returned to students properly will be deleted from your Drive and theirs. That's bad news. Keep it proper.
Watch this snappy little video to learn how to return student work.
When finished, go to the To-do page again and move it into the Reviewed section by clicking the three-dots and selecting Mark as reviewed. The reason for doing this step is to make it easier for you to see what still needs to be done.
Tip #2 - Create a Class Template for Next Year
Technology must allow us to work smarter not harder. Google Classroom has a feature that does just that. This feature is the "copy a class" option, and I highly recommend it. To reuse work you created in a class, you can copy a class. Copying also helps you save time when you have multiple sections of the same class.
Items that copy
The copied class keeps this information from the original class:
- Title
- Section
- Description
- Course subject
- Topics
- Classwork posts (copied as drafts with no scheduled date)
The following information doesn’t appear in the copied class:
When you’re done teaching a class, you can archive it. When a class is archived, it’s archived for all teachers and students in that class. If you don’t archive classes, they still appear on your Classroom homepage and on students’ homepages. Nobody needs previous year's Classrooms cluttering up their screen. Remember, what I said about clearing that cloudy qi of yours?
You can restore an archived class if you want to use it again, or delete it if you’ll never use it again. You can copy and reuse old posts from an archived class as well. Really, there's no reason not to archive. Here's how.
To archive an old class:
- Teacher announcements
- Deleted classwork items
- Students and co-teachers
- Student posts
- Attachments that you don’t have permission to copy
- Go to classroom.google.com.
- On the class you want to copy, click More
Copy.
- (Optional) Edit the title and other information.
- Click Copy.
When you’re done teaching a class, you can archive it. When a class is archived, it’s archived for all teachers and students in that class. If you don’t archive classes, they still appear on your Classroom homepage and on students’ homepages. Nobody needs previous year's Classrooms cluttering up their screen. Remember, what I said about clearing that cloudy qi of yours?
You can restore an archived class if you want to use it again, or delete it if you’ll never use it again. You can copy and reuse old posts from an archived class as well. Really, there's no reason not to archive. Here's how.
To archive an old class:
- Go to classroom.google.com.
- On the class card, click More
To view an archived class:
- Go to classroom.google.com.
- At the top, click Menu
.
- Scroll down and click Archived classes.
- Select the class you want to view.
To restore an archived class:
If you're not using Google Calendar yet, you should. It's a simple way to keep your work life in order. You know what they say, "Fail to plan, plan to fail." Anyways, Google Classroom creates a calendar for you once you create a class. If you use due dates when creating assignments, they are added to the calendar automatically for both you and your students. Pretty nifty, eh?
But alas, once the year is over, you don't need this calendar cluttering your view. If you don't need a calendar anymore, you can permanently delete it or unsubscribe from it. If you think you might need the calendar later, you can hide it instead. So, here's what you need to do next.
Remove a calendar temporarily (Hide)
- Go to classroom.google.com.
- At the top, click Menu
- Scroll down and click Archived classes.
- On the class card, click More
- Click Restore to confirm.
If you're not using Google Calendar yet, you should. It's a simple way to keep your work life in order. You know what they say, "Fail to plan, plan to fail." Anyways, Google Classroom creates a calendar for you once you create a class. If you use due dates when creating assignments, they are added to the calendar automatically for both you and your students. Pretty nifty, eh?
But alas, once the year is over, you don't need this calendar cluttering your view. If you don't need a calendar anymore, you can permanently delete it or unsubscribe from it. If you think you might need the calendar later, you can hide it instead. So, here's what you need to do next.
Remove a calendar temporarily (Hide)
- Go to calendar.google.com.
- On the left, find the calendar you want to remove. It may be under "My calendars" or "Other calendars."
- Hover your mouse over the calendar name and click More
.
- Click Hide from list.
Remove a calendar permanently (Remove)
- Go to calendar.google.com.
- On the left, find the calendar you want to remove. It may be under "My calendars" or "Other calendars."
- Hover your mouse over the calendar name and click X.
- Click Remove Calendar.
Ciao for now and have a super summer!
Hi Admin! Every teacher has been learning the various tools and applications to teach the students in a better and effective way in this pandemic. It’s that time of year again. As many teachers begin to wrap up the end of the school year and prepare for summer, they want to make sure everything is clean and organized. Google Classroom and Google Drive can get quite messy throughout the school year, and everyone wants to get everything cleaned up and set up for success in the next school year. Now that even more teachers are using Google Classroom and planning for whatever the new normal is in the fall, it’s even more important to take the time to reflect, cleanup, and plan. You described many do's and don'ts of Google classroom cleanup in a very simple way. I was not clear with the use of the 'archive' option you explained it in a very simple way. 'Copy a class' is really a way to work smartly. There are many online tools for teaching purposes but teachers know little about their various features. The tips you shared here are very helpful. Thanks for sharing.
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