Google Classroom Updates & How to Make Your Google Classroom Cooler than Everyone Else's

So you've probably realized already Classroom has made some changes. I beta tested the updates over the summer, but I didn't fully appreciate the changes until I had students in my classroom. I use Classroom at the district level to post things like calendars, polls, board agendas, etc. That class has been around a while, and I didn't want to make employees rejoin a new class for the new school year, so that class still has two tabs in the header - Stream and People. The About tab is still fully functional, and it's a good spot for resources.

My new Classroom that I created since the changes rolled out has three tabs - Stream, Classwork, and People. I use Classwork more than anything now, with Stream just being for announcements, which is kind of annoying. I wanted to be able to add something to my Classwork stream without attaching an assignment to it, but now there's two spots for students to check instead of one. I don't love that. Also, the About tab is basically useless now. You can't add to it; it just displays the join code.  I don't love that either. Also, I read somewhere you could rearrange the assignments, so I tried grabbing the snowman and dragging the assignments up or down. Nope. You have to click Move Up or Move Down over and over until you get them where you want them. Basic. Color me disgruntled.

We're positive people over here at AuthenTech though, so let's talk about what's good! Want to have the coolest looking Google Classroom in your school? Add a GIF for your header. You can do this in an old class or a new class and have (probably) the only animated Google Classroom in your students' list of classes.

The easiest way to do it is download the Google Chrome extension GIFit! Grab that extension at the Chrome Webstore. When you add it to your Chrome and watch a YouTube video, there will be a GIFit! button on the YouTube video. Now my favorite YouTube video ever is Denver the Guilty Dog. When I watch it (btw, remember to sign into Chrome, not just Drive), I will have a GIFit button pop up on the YouTube video.

See it in the bottom right of the video? You click that button, pick a few seconds to create a GIF from, save the video as a 800 x 450 size, and upload it to your Google Classroom where it says Upload Photo (underneath About). Super easy! I made a Classroom called Google for Superheroes for some PD and went and found a video of some Marvel characters and made a GIF header for that class. I usually just change the width to 800 and let the height say what it wants, which is usually 800 x 450.

You will have the coolest Google Classroom; being cool in person is up to you!