Google Classroom — a parent's view
In mid-March, schools switched overnight from the familiar, albeit outdated, frontal classroom teaching to online learning. The move, which was made out of necessity, raised a number of problems and shortcomings in the use of the tools and collaboration platforms to be used, as well as the fact that distance learning would be difficult to implement without the active involvement of parents.
Not only were teachers trying to learn and use online workspaces such as Microsoft Teams or Google Classroom, and students trying to meet the demands of classroom teaching, sometimes digital, sometimes online, but parents also had to learn how to mediate effectively between child and teacher or child and classmates. They had to help them process the material and use the online tools at the same time as getting their children to take this form of learning seriously.
It is no coincidence that at the end of the school year, several educational institutions produced virtual certificates to reward parents for their active involvement in the successful completion of the school year.
Just how much parents have earned this recognition was summed up by the mother of a primary school pupil who was asked to tell us about her experience of online education...
Google Classroom — a parent's view
On 16 March 2020, Hungary switched to digital education and teachers, parents and children had to get used to a whole new system.
Our school is a school on the outskirts of Budapest, and as a mother I can tell you about my experience of digital education in the lower grades.
The third-grade teacher chose Google Classroom. There were several reasons for this.
In the first days, the teachers tried to deal with the "sudden" digital education in the form of e-mails, i.e. they sent me the timetable for the next lesson and the homework assignments.
In a classroom, like ours, there are several teachers: one for PE, one for art, one for composition, one for maths, etc. So in the first few days we received a plethora of emails from at least five teachers, in at least 12 different subjects, with different deadlines for each assignment, and by the Friday of the first week we had a jumble of emails that were opaque and untraceable, and took longer to process and organise than the time it took the child to learn the material.
Meanwhile, the class teacher was working with exemplary diligence and time to find the best solution — and Google Classroom solved almost all our problems.
To do this, you first had to create the child's email address. This was necessary because Classroom can be accessed using the GMail account. The parent's email address can also be an option, but in this case the parent will "log in" to the classroom, their name will appear everywhere. Both the teacher and classmates will always see the parent's name instead of the student's — this can be confusing. The other reason is that Classroom sends notifications of everything that happens: for example, if the teacher has graded an assignment, sent a private message, or a new assignment has been added to the site. Messages can be turned off, of course, but then the very 'immediacy' of the online classroom would be lost. In the end, the best solution seemed to be to give the child their own GMail address, which is all that is needed for a virtual classroom presence.
Google Classroom works great on a computer, but there is also a mobile app that works perfectly well and is very easy to use.
Google Classroom really is like a real classroom: when you enter, you see the subjects on a clean, transparent tiled surface. On the tiles, you see the name of the subject and its teacher, with a small note underneath if the subject has an assignment to be done.
The starting page can be varied, you can start with more than just tiling. If you prefer, you can choose to view the calendar — this will show you the week, broken down by day, with the tasks that are due. This makes it clear what tasks are due that day and what is still to be done.
However, in my opinion, it is easiest to click on the To Do tab straight away, because then you only see the tasks that need to be done. The deadline is also indicated here, and there may even be a task for which no deadline has been given — in principle, it can be done at any time.
Wherever you start from, the simplicity and clarity of Classroom means that you can find the subject and start working on it straight away. The description of the task and what to do about it are organised on a single page. The teacher can attach a document, video, picture or link to the task. We can comment on it, ask questions, give opinions — or just chat about it — which everyone can see, as if the children were talking about it in the classroom.
When the task is ready, it is marked as "Done". If you need to upload something, such as a photo of the workbook or a video, you can attach it when you submit the assignment. The uploaded assignments are only visible to the teacher, not to classmates. We can also send a private message to the teacher about the assignment, which only the teacher can see.
And if you want to look back at an assignment you have already submitted, you can do that too. You can find all the assignments you've done, with attachments, and even see next to them the status of the assignment: "submitted" — in this case the teacher hasn't looked at it yet, if there's a tick next to it, they have, and if there's an assessment next to it, you can also see the grade you've received.
What we missed in it is a big communal chat area where, just like, say, during breaks, kids can chat to each other, see who's online etc. There's no opportunity for that at the moment, Classroom remains strictly a classroom where you have to focus on the task at hand, not on socialising. Neither voice nor video messaging is possible.
It is not suitable for online lessons, you will have to find another platform.
But for classroom tasks, learning the material, assigning, handing in, checking, returning and meeting deadlines, it is perfectly suitable. It has a simple interface, easy to understand even for parents who are not computer literate. The interface is so simple and straightforward that children learn to use it very quickly. A
A third-grade student can be left in full control, can find and complete a new task independently.
At times, an external application was needed for practice. The Tankocka (LearningApps) app, in which the teacher created practice tasks for the children, worked well.
Parental help is needed if, for example, you need to take a photo of the notebook and your child doesn't have their own smartphone running the Classroom app. Because if you need to upload something, a mobile app is the best way to do it, as you can take a photo of the task on your mobile and upload it in one go.
As a mother, I am overall very satisfied with Classroom, a perfect interface for a virtual classroom.
Budapest, May 2020.
Mum of a third grade boy and a second grade girl