GAM / Google Classroom

[ADMaster]

Hello,

TL;DR Does a blank classroom materials field in a gam report mean there is no content and safe to delete?

 

I'm looking at a new classroom management tool, chrome tools. It relies on google classrooms for the list of students. In the past I've just let teachers manage their own classes. Many would prefer one large class for multiple sections of the same course. This doesn't pair well when that class is used as a list of who is present in that physical classroom for computer monitoring.

 

I found @rogerdnixon 's info on syncing SIMS to google classroom. I did this with a few test classrooms in the spring.

Now it is time to clean up and create classes for this fall. I have about 200 classes that have been created by teachers over the years. Only 3 of them have a url in the course materials field.

Does this mean only 3 classes have been used as a classroom and the rest blank slates?

I can take the safe route and just archive everything. However since I'm going to be creating hundreds of classrooms a year now, I'd like to delete them if they were never used for anything more than a roster.

Some of the teachers I had testing in the spring said they might use the classes I create for monitoring, but create their own classes for materials with all students of that course.

 

 

Thank you

[edmokeski]

Not sure I follow their logic in wanting one class -- are they all sufficiently familiar with the fact that you can create one assignment/material/etc. and have it go out to multiple classrooms? Only compelling reason to have one rather than several seems to me to be if you want the students in different sections to communicate w/ each other via the classroom. Anyhow, teachers' logic aside...

I believe you're right that no URLs in materials = no materials in the course. I'm not sure that means no posts, however - just no attachments. You can spot check easily enough by using GAM to make yourself a teacher of a few classes.

I generally stick with "I'll archive them all at the end of the year, it's up to you to delete it when you get fed up with the clutter." I'd think you could just as easily go with a policy like "I'm archiving everything from 18-19, leaving everything (already archived) from 17-18, and deleting everything from 16-17," assuming it's well communicated.

FWIW, you can also get some reports off of the GSuite admin console that will give you a sense of whether anybody's really using Classroom.