Google Classroom management software

[Starbug1]

Can anyone recommend any good software to help us manage our Google Classroom?

 

We currently use Wonde to sync with our MIS, which is SIMS, however this isn't really proving to be sufficient for our requirements.

 

For example, our House Leaders would like to be able to easily see what work has been set for any given student, so to do this they would need to be added to all Classrooms. But I am not aware of any easy method of ensuring that the relevant staff are always added to all relevant classrooms. Yes we could ask teachers to add them manually, and yes we could alternatively use GAM but neither of these are easy long term solutions.

 

Also we may have other requirements, for example we may want a method of providing some level of access to parents, but without creating a burden for teachers to add the relevant information.

 

If anyone can point us in the direction of any recommended software, and any indication of potential costs, this would be greatly appreciated.

 

Many thanks in advance

[fiza]

We use Salamander for most of this. It pulls info from SIMS but they also give you the option of having CSV files where you can add additional members of staff to be added to Google Classrooms on a permanent basis.https://www.salamandersoft.co.uk/g-suite-for-education/

Parents get Google Guardian Summaries which is a weekly or daily digest email showing work set in Google Classroom. https://support.google.com/edu/classroom/answer/6388136?hl=en

Edited November 16, 2020 by fiza

[Chaniel]

We use Salamander for our synchronisation of data between our MIS and O365/Google.

 

For example;

 

Syncing students to classes based on SIMS (and removing in the event of migration)

Syncing teachers to classes based on SIMS

Syncing parent email addresses to students for guardian summaries

Syncing SIMS timetables to Google and Office accounts

 

They're pretty quick if we want to make any changes to what it's doing.

[paulkerton]

Also we may have other requirements, for example we may want a method of providing some level of access to parents, but without creating a burden for teachers to add the relevant information.

Something like Firefly's new parent portal is supposed to enable things like access to content for parents, though I have zero idea of how it works, or the cost as it was only announced last week.

As for sync, we are able to create "associate teachers" in Bromcom that will attach to classrooms as teachers, but not timetable it for the associates. Does SIMS not have this kind of function for classrooms also that Wonde feeds from?

[the_quick]

Google Classroom is not perfect, and I wish there would be some admin control in G suite. Salamander helps and create lots of the automatically, but we had request from teachers if houde of house, department, subject can be added - these can be added with GAM/Salamander, we just wish it could be bit easier.

 

Parents access is really lacking - we moved from classcharts homework to classroom. Google Classroom provide better tools for teachers and pupils, but parental access is much more limited. Daily (only for parents with a google account) or weekly digest is just not enough. Parents complain all the time that they cannot see all the homework. They need to ask their kids to show them - I know what is the problem? I think parents want to look without their kids knowing about it.

I hope Google will improve it with time, as classroom surely is now more popular.

[Brimstone]

If you are looking at parental engagement this is where Classroom falls down, if you are a Primary then I'd strongly recommend Seesaw which has it's own parental app.

 

If you are a secondary then Showbie does all the classroom modulation across an entire work group, class or year and a parental app as well.

[Starbug1]

Thanks for all the replies so far. Does anyone know of any method of extracting data that shows coursework assigned to students, for example to easily be able to see which teachers are not setting work, or what work each student has been set?

[dhicks]

Does anyone know of any method of extracting data that shows coursework assigned to students, for example to easily be able to see which teachers are not setting work, or what work each student has been set?

 

GAM-XTD3 has a "gam print course-work" command available:

 

https://github.com/taers232c/GAMADV-XTD3/wiki/Classroom-Courses

 

It looks like from the above you should be able to get a list of Courses and Assignments. Of course, that doesn't give you a neatly-formatted report suitible for putting in front of a parent or teacher, you would nedd to further process that data in some way. I do that with a set of Python scripts - I'm working on getting to a state where they might be useful to other users, but they're not currently in a really release-able state.

[the_quick]

thanks @dhicks, just updated my Gam to XTD3. Need to workout exact command for teachers/students, accidently just run main command gam print course-work and it found 4544 courses lol.

 

Let us know when you have your python script ready for sharing, really interested. Parents keep complaining they cannot see live given homework. So at least we could produce that on demand.

[highsky]

The active switch will export only the provisioned non archived classes.

 

For teaching supervisors 2 workarounds, if SIMS create dummy courses, attach classes and assign supervisors .

Or in the Wonde settings disable the automatic removal of members from non assigned classes.

 

You can go as far as running Wonde manually as it creates visual reports with any changes, before and after committing that you can check and copy.

 

There's also sheet add-ons that create can provide some gui management and reporting like:

 

https://www.goldyarora.com/classright/

[dhicks]

https://www.goldyarora.com/classright/

 

Ah, interesting, thanks - I hadn't come accross that tool before. I'm taking a similar approach, with scripts that take settings / lists from spreadsheets to process, although with "API" access being handled by a server-side script that runs GAM rather than as anything snazzily integrated into GSuite.

[the_quick]

Managed to get GAM-XTD3 installed, pulled the data I want. IT teacher already shown interest, that she can try use Python to put the data in more presentable way. My goal would be to be able to deliver like a report to parents: this is the homework you child was given. Not sure if this is even doable and how to do it yet.

So first we would need to get data for each students (separate CSV files ?) and compose it and maybe send as an email to parent each day. Best would be If I could linked it to Edulink somehow. Will give a go and see how far I can get.

[gh5000]

There's a whole admin side reporting section coming for Classroom. Same place as the drive audit logs. Don't know if API access will be improved concurrently.

[keyboards]

There's a whole admin side reporting section coming for Classroom. Same place as the drive audit logs. Don't know if API access will be improved concurrently.

 

You got a link or info per chance?

[dhicks]

Best would be If I could linked it to Edulink somehow.

 

Edulink's interface looks pretty comprehensive - if that's the solution you're using you should probably check what format they can accept data in first, then work on getting your data to that format. I have a mechanism for doing mailmerge-style document templates with Word / Google Docs files and Excel / Sheets / CSV files, but that'll result in a set of Word / PDF documents which you can serve to individual parents, it won't look as snazzy as Edulink's interface.

[gh5000]

You got a link or info per chance?

My problem is I can never remember if I've been told something under NDA or not but found this on a public URL.

 

Powerful insights in Classroom

 

Coming soon, admins who want to troubleshoot Classroom issues will be able to access Classroom audit logs directly from the Admin console. With audit logs, they’ll be able to pinpoint events such as who removed a student from a class or who archived a specific class on a specific date.

 

Especially now, we’ve heard that admins want dashboards that give them detailed visibility into usage and adoption of Classroom so they can provide targeted training to teachers, or help intervene with students who aren’t engaged. At schools with G Suite Enterprise for Education, admins will soon be able to automatically import Classroom logs into BigQuery, where they can get much deeper insights into who is using Classroom and how they’re using it. With just a few clicks, they can also create a customizable dashboard on Data Studio, giving them a slate of engagement metrics, including metrics like how many assignments were created, submitted, or graded, and will be able to pivot by date, organizational unit, specific instructors, or specific students

 

https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/back-to-school-gfe-admins/

[the_quick]

Still not really what I'm after. There should be easier admin classroom management , where as admin we can go to every classroom. add or remove people there etc. Would be great to see better reporting that parents can access/be given

 

Will talk to EduLink if we can feed their homework page somehow from Google classroom

[Starbug1]

Regarding providing access to parents/carers, another school has said they use Wizkids ( https://www.wizkids.co.uk/school/edulife/ ) which integrates SIMS with Google and Active Directory; I assume if we went with that, it would be instead of using Wonde? I understand that it gets the parent data from SIMS and allows parents to see what work has been set on Google Classroom.

 

Does anyone have any experience of Wizkids?

 

Does Salamandersoft have an option to give access to parents?

 

Wonde works reasonably well for us, so we'd only want to switch if we can move to a provider that genuinely provides more functions as well as being reliable and affordable. Any experiences anyone has with any of these tools would be useful.

[fiza]

Still not really what I'm after. There should be easier admin classroom management , where as admin we can go to every classroom. add or remove people there etc. Would be great to see better reporting that parents can access/be given

 

Will talk to EduLink if we can feed their homework page somehow from Google classroom

Apparently this is coming soon to Edulink!

[paulkerton]

My problem is I can never remember if I've been told something under NDA or not but found this on a public URL.

 

Powerful insights in Classroom

 

Coming soon, admins who want to troubleshoot Classroom issues will be able to access Classroom audit logs directly from the Admin console. With audit logs, they’ll be able to pinpoint events such as who removed a student from a class or who archived a specific class on a specific date.

 

Especially now, we’ve heard that admins want dashboards that give them detailed visibility into usage and adoption of Classroom so they can provide targeted training to teachers, or help intervene with students who aren’t engaged. At schools with G Suite Enterprise for Education, admins will soon be able to automatically import Classroom logs into BigQuery, where they can get much deeper insights into who is using Classroom and how they’re using it. With just a few clicks, they can also create a customizable dashboard on Data Studio, giving them a slate of engagement metrics, including metrics like how many assignments were created, submitted, or graded, and will be able to pivot by date, organizational unit, specific instructors, or specific students

 

https://blog.google/outreach-initiatives/education/back-to-school-gfe-admins/

 

Has this ever launched? It was announced 5 months ago, and I've seen no documentation, nothing in the Admin Console....

[the_quick]

I just bought Wizkids their classroom management software. Works really well, easy to use. Does most what I need, like adding and removing people from classrooms and just check who is assigned. Nothing in it for parents, but it is still being developed, so maybe they will add this soon

[paulkerton]

I just bought Wizkids their classroom management software. Works really well, easy to use. Does most what I need, like adding and removing people from classrooms and just check who is assigned. Nothing in it for parents, but it is still being developed, so maybe they will add this soon

I can get all of that from GAM, so I'm happy to continue that.

 

What I'd really like is the insights into what is being posted. When things are posted. What type of content. Engagement. That kind of thing.

Does anyone know any product that could pull that sort of information?

[gh5000]

Has this ever launched? It was announced 5 months ago, and I've seen no documentation, nothing in the Admin Console....

Not launched but was mentioned in a GSEfE onboarding I was in last week as a feature coming soon (whatever that means). Although not slated to be a GSEfE feature.

[paulkerton]

Apparently due in the coming weeks.

 

Though I've since found a connector app from a US institution that is letting pull data over into Bigquery in the meantime, and it seems pretty useful!

https://www.landingzone.org/google-connector