Mobile apps, mobile teachers with Classroom
2. Record videos and take photos
Students and teachers can easily record and upload photos and videos to Classroom. Deanna Confredo, a high school social studies teacher, has been using Classroom for three years now to integrate photos and videos into her classes. “Some students prefer to use paper, and the mobile app allows me to collect work digitally while giving them some choice in how they want to complete their work. Students have the Classroom app on their phones, and they take a picture of their written work and upload it. ”
Deanna also has her students take photos to tie learning back to their own lives. “I was teaching how to test claims, so I asked my students to take a picture of a claim they saw – some of them took a picture of the news – and then upload it to Classroom. Then the next day, we talked about how we could test those claims and find evidence to support or refute them.”
3. Posting on the go
The mobility of smartphones means that teachers and students can post from wherever they are. Chrystal Hoe has found this to be especially useful for field trips. “We recently had a field trip with a scavenger hunt in a museum. We asked questions through Classroom and asked everyone to post a comment or turn in a picture to the Google Classroom Stream throughout the day. It was handy as we were hopping around town, and fun for everyone to see what everyone else was posting.”
The offline data built into our Classroom apps also means that teachers can edit and check classes regardless of location. Rachel Coathup, a head of digital curriculum, often takes advantage of this, especially during the parts of her day when a laptop is not easily accessible. “I find being able to get on my phone and quickly check that my classes are all set up for the following day to be very useful. And if I’m on the train, I can fix any assignments up and easily reuse posts from the different classes I teach.”
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