Blog Post 5: Case Studies

Case Study #1: Google Classroom

Google Classroom is a Google Application that creates a digital classroom for students. Under the Classwork tab,  Teachers can upload assignments and grade them, assignment descriptions, directions and due dates can be added. Students can submit assignments and teachers have real time access to the documents that students are working on. The Stream is where teachers and students can create and comment on other peoples’ posts. Hyperlinks and YouTube videos can be included in posts as well. There is also a People tab that allows you to see the teachers and students in the class. Parents can also be granted access to Google Classroom and stay up to date. 

Teachers typically use this platform as a teaching tool. Teachers can create a digital assignment and upload it for students to complete. Teachers will often post class updates on the Stream as well. The Stream is also a place where teachers will post digital content such as YouTube videos and articles. Students use this application to absorb information and learn in a digital way. They can complete and turn in digital assignments. This could be anything from writing a paper to creating a digital documentary and uploading the link in their classroom to share with their peers. Students will also often use this application to comment on posts and ask questions or add additional information. Parents can utilize their access to Google Classrooms to stay up to date on assignments, and develop a deeper understanding with what their child is learning. 

Communication is one of the key components of this application. Students and teachers can post and leave comments to one another. You can also reply directly to a person's post or comment, similar to Brightspace, creating a space where students can practice digital communication. Not only does it make room for communication online, but it can and does open space for dialogue in the classroom. Students can utilize Google Classroom to absorb digital media that their teacher posts or complete an assignment online. The teacher then has the opportunity to create a conversation in class about the learning that occurred online. The People tab also allows you to view the people in your class and send them emails for more personal communication. 

Anyone that is a member of the Google Classroom has the opportunity to post and comment on the Stream, allowing knowledge and content to be easily shared with the entire class. Teachers will often post digital lessons and assignments that align with their content area to allow students to learn in a digital space. Not only does this allow students to be consumers of knowledge, it allows them to be creators of knowledge in a digital space. Google Classroom is the Platform where they can share that digital knowledge with their teachers and peers. Due to the teacher having access to documents assigned to students, they can leave real time feedback for students. Students can also reply in a comment to each individual piece of feedback and engage in a conversation through comment with the teacher about the work they’re doing. This allows for individualized learning for the students and it also provides for documentation for educators. There’s even an application that can analyze class data. (Google, 2024) Teachers can use this to better drive their education and target which topics and students might need a little more attention and care. 

Positive impacts of Google Classroom far outweigh the negative. The Stream component of Google Classroom allows for younger students, such as my 6th graders, to engage in a social media like space. My students are at the age where they’re starting to get cell phones and have all of this access and responsibility online. It is so important that they’re able to practice utilizing technology as a tool and learning to communicate in a digital space. According to Kali Ledgerwood, “Understanding the benefits of social media use in the curriculum for students’ 21st-century competencies will encourage teachers to adopt these digital tools as a pedagogical tool to enhance their education and best prepare their students for the workforce in the digital age.” (Ledgerwood, 2022) Being able to introduce students to a developmentally appropriate and teacher facilitated social media platform, they’ll be able to learn how to conduct themselves in a professional way in a digital space. It also gives them the opportunity to make the connection with social media and Google Classroom and see them both as tools. The only negative component I see with Google Classroom is that it does not allow students to actually do their own research. It’s more of a place where learning and knowledge can be shared rather than a place where it can be created. 

Due to Google Classroom being a school provided technology, it’s safe and protected through the school’s cyber security program. All student data and information is protected. All class data is also only available to people in the classroom. So, unless you’re a person that has been invited or accepted into the classroom with the special code that only the teachers have access to, you cannot find that class or anything within it. 

The literacies that the students will need will depend on the assignment that the teacher creates and uploads. Students could be watching a video and then creating a Google Slide about what they learned. This would require students to be able to analyze the visual media and then create their own version of digital media presenting the knowledge they have acquired from it. Teachers might also upload multiple readings and ask students to collaborate with others to make a video and present their findings. This would require students being able to utilize their traditional literacy skill of reading to create a space for productive and analytical conversations about each students’ perspective on the information. The diversity in assignments and literacies that could be used is essential in education. Students are going to be met with so many digital tasks in their adult lives, we need to prepare them to consume and create digital knowledge in multiple contexts, putting them at the center of their digital world. 

Google Classroom aligns very well with goals, especially within differentiated education. This application allows students to move at their own pace, and interact with the teacher via feedback and comments for individualized assistance. Teachers can use this platform to share knowledge and digital media content with their students and allow a safe space for them to interact with one another. Teachers create engaging assignments and have the opportunity to provide students with diversified and rich digital content to prepare them for the digital world they’ll be a part of after they graduate. Parents can join the classes and be a part of the educational online experience. They’ll have access to and be a part of the knowledge being consumed and created by their child.

Case Study #2: Parent Square

ParentSquare is an application where students, parents, administrators, coaches, community members, and teachers can communicate and share updates. Its primary function in education is to foster home and school relationships to create a space where it’s easy for a parent to play an active role in their child's education. ParentSquare is an app that can be downloaded on your phone or it can be accessed on a computer. It even sends text and email notifications, along with the app notifications, to let parents know when there’s a new message or post. On top of that, it sends out weekly digests to give parents a recap of the posts that have been uploaded that week. 

Teachers and administrators can utilize ParentSquare to communicate directly with parents and guardians of students. This communication can be via post or by direct messages. Administrators have the ability to send out district wide notices that everyone on the app is notified to. Teachers have the ability to post directly to a group of students in a class, the parents of those students, or both. Administrators and teachers have the opportunity to direct message parents, parents can message administrators and teachers as well. Instead of a long chain of emails, this communication looks like Facebook messenger and allows for images and videos to be uploaded in messages and posts too. 

ParentSquare creates more dialogue outside of the classroom than it does in the classroom. This allows for parents and community members to be involved and talk about what’s going on inside the school and classrooms. Guardians on the app can also comment on and “heart” posts. This creates a space for community involvement on a digital level. It also keeps the community up to date about upcoming sporting events, concerts, shows, testing dates, and general announcements that concern their child's education and participation in school. The community members can also share these ParentSquare posts directly to their own social media, to inform more community members about the happenings. (ParentSquare, 2024) This creates an even larger portion of the community to be involved in the school and its events. 

I would say that the information provided on this app gives the school and the employees an opportunity to be the “learners”. ParentSquare provides teachers with information about how many families interacted with specific posts; whether that be clicking on the link, liking it, sharing it, or leaving a comment - all of that information is available for the school to analyze. We can use that information to further drive our decisions in what and how we post. If there is lots of engagement about posts concerning sports updates, that’s something that we can look into and make a plan to be more proactive about. If there’s less engagement with a certain post, we can use that data to drive the creation of future more visually engaging posts to reel people in. We can also use this data to analyze which families are not engaging with the posts and we can make more of an effort to reach out to them directly and make sure that they have and know how to use the application. 

ParentSquare has an extremely positive impact on school and community engagement. It allows a space where the community can participate in education, creating stronger trust and bonds between home and school. Those bonds and trust will eventually manifest themselves into parents being more involved in their child’s education which will only benefit the child and their learning. The negative effects of this platform could be that guardians can also express their discontent and create a negative online space where community members and school staff may become apprehensive about communicating and interacting with in the future. It’s important that the schools continue to keep the space safe and positive to form positive engagement with schools and home. 

As with Google Classroom, this application is provided through the school. So, all contact information, personal information, messages, posts, etc., cannot be seen or found by anyone without an invitation to join from the school. The invitation is sent from the school directly to the parents’ phone numbers to ensure authenticity. Even when the content is shared to the guardian's personal social media, all people see is the post, not the people who have interacted with it and they are not granted access to the rest of ParentSquare. Also, that function is only turned on with select posts that the administrators might make that are sent out to everyone. 

Other than being able to navigate the platform and read the posts and communication, there is not much literacy that can be learned from this application unless the information being shared promotes parents to analyze and make sense of information. However, it’s used as more of a communication tool than a space where learning is taking place.

A goal that is mutual in all schools across the country is to have communication between school and home. ParentSquare checks all of those boxes by allowing the schools and teachers to communicate on a district, class, and personal level. Although teachers may not be able to use this application for teaching, we can use the information collected to foster more authentic communications and interactions within the schools and community surrounding it. Parents becoming involved with the school and effectively their students' education is essential and it’s been proven that guardian support fosters higher levels of achievement with students; the goal for administrators, teachers, parents, community members, and students alike.

References

Google. (2024). Classroom Management Tools & Resources. Google for Education. https://edu.google.com/intl/ALL_us/workspace-for-education/classroom/ 

Ledgerwood, K. (2022, July 31). Using social media to promote 21st-century learning. Technology and the Curriculum Summer 2022. https://pressbooks.pub/techcurr20221/chapter/using-social-media-to-promote-21st-century-learning/ 

ParentSquare. (2024, October 31). About parentsquare - school and parent communication app. https://www.parentsquare.com/about/