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10 Google Classroom Hacks You Need to Know Now

Whooo's Reading Blog Team

January 3, 2019

By The Whooo’s Reading Blog Team

Many teachers now use Google Classroom to organize, connect, and collaborate. In fact, as of 2017, G Suite for Education had 70 million users—and that number is growing every day.

If you’re yearning to do more, engage your students or simply test new ideas, check out these simple Google Classroom hacks.

From differentiating student work to making your life easier, you may find ideas you didn’t even know you needed.

Want more Google Classroom resources? Check out a few of our most popular:

Differentiate Student Documents

“The ‘reuse post’ option in Classroom brought to light a great opportunity to give me the time efficient method I was seeking. Within this option is the capability to create new copies of all attachments and that means the teacher doesn’t have to go to Google Drive and make a bunch of copies, rename them, and organize them in a folder!”

Get the Hack from Edgaged

Streamline Communication Between Teachers of Differing Grade Levels

“Instead of it being used strictly for communication and accountability, it could be used as a powerful collaboration tool. All teachers within the department or grade level could be added as co-teachers so that anyone could post and access shared materials. I see this being a place to send reminders, share resources, co-plan lessons, ask questions, share student successes, and house commonly used files.”

Get the hack from Lauren Borrero

Edit Images Within Google Docs and Slides

“Editing the images gives you the ability to add a professional touch to your presentations and documents. These tips may seem like a secret because some of these features are a bit hidden, but once you see the possibilities, your docs and slides will never be the same. No need for fancy Photoshop software to do simple cropping, add a border, a drop shadow, or even mask an image into a shape!”

Get the hack from Shake Up Learning

Use Bookmarks to Navigate Long Documents

Easily jump between sections of long documents, like those for assessments or project rubrics, with bookmarks.

Get hack from Whooo’s Reading

Turn Off Comments

“I teach 3rd grade. At this point, I don’t need my students to be making comments on every thread. I have a lot of “hi Mrs. Neal” or “cool” that pops up. You can turn off the comment feature and turn it back on during certain times if you need to.”

Get the hack from Upper Elementary Snapshots

Send Student Summaries Directly From Google Classroom

“If you want to send the student summary of work to a guardian make sure the guardian emails are entered on the People tab. Note that this only needs to be done once per student. Adding guardians links the information to the student. Any other classes the student is enrolled in will automatically have the guardian listed.”

Get the hack from Alice Keeler

Shuffle Question Order

“Hoping to curb cheating among students? When creating Google Forms quizzes, teachers have the option of shuffling question order. This feature works best when collecting the email addresses of users—doing so takes away the necessity of creating a question for the “Name” of the student completing the assessment.”

Get hack from Whooo’s Reading

Create a GSuite Template

“This is a game-changer, y’all! Templates make life easier, especially as a teacher. I make copies of interesting G Suite files and templates all the time. Sharing is caring! Templates make it easier to share learning activities, lesson plans, Hyperdocs, and more.”

Get the hack from Shake Up Learning

Use Kaizena to Turn Feedback into “Lessons”

“What is Kaizena? Simply put, Kaizena is a Google Add-On that allows English teachers to leave voice comments, text comments, or video/web-based lessons as feedback from within a Google document.”

Get the hack from Lindsay Ann Learning

Put a Time Limit on Files You Share

“You are probably familiar with sharing files within Google Drive, but did you know you can set a time limit on a share? This feature is available for G Suite for Work and G Suite for Education. Perhaps you want to share your syllabus with your current students but don’t want to share it with them once they leave your class next year since you always update the same file.”

Get the hack from Schooled in Tech