To get to Google Classroom from your browser, click the Google Classroom icon on your taskbar, or go to classroom.google.com. Students with school owned Chromebooks will have the app preloaded; we recommend others download the app as well. You can only use Google Classroom with your FCS Google account.  The first time you log in, if you are a Middle or Upper School you will see a listing of all of the classes you teach. Before you can use Classroom with your students, you will have to click the Activate button on each class listed. If you do not see any classes or if you do see classes but would like to create your own Classroom, click the "+" in the upper right corner to make a new class. Add a class name and a section. The class name should be the title of the class. (“Mrs. Johnson Fourth Grade,” “Spanish 3,” “8th Grade Social Studies”). The section should identify which of those classes it is (for me, mine say “2nd period” for the section). Then click “Create.” Choose a theme Once your class is created or you open the classes that have been created for you, you should take a second and choose a theme if you don't like the theme that Google chose for you. Google tries to set a picture that reflects the name of your class. It can be hit or miss. At the top right, click “Change class theme” on the right side of the header. It will open a gallery of header images you can use to spice up your classroom. Edit your about page The About page (accessible from the middle menu bar) is home to the course name, description, location, and instructor contact information. In addition, there is a Materials section that allows the instructor to add files from Google Drive. The Google Drive folder for your class Each Classroom course has a Google Calendar associated with it. All of your assignments will also be listed in a Google Calendar that you and students can see. Add materials. This is a great place to link course specific documents that will be referenced regularly (syllabus, reading list, Google Drive folder with all the documents needed for the course, etc). Add students to your Classroom If you are using the classes that have been created for you already, you can skip this part. If you have created your own class, have them log into Classroom with their FCS Google account and click the "+" just like you did. It will prompt them for a class code, which you can give them (write it on the board, show it on a projector, etc.). Once they enter it, they’re in! You are not limited to just adding students into a Classroom. You can also add other faculty and staff as students or co-teachers. This would be a great use for departments to share and collaborate on documents with each other while maintaining a one-stop-shop for all your communications. This post has described how to customize the look of your Classroom, add information and materials to the About page, and how to add students to your Classroom. In the next post, we will discuss how to create assignments and announcements.

Posting an announcement This is a good way to communicate with your class and give them up-to-date information. Click the “Announcement” button to display a message to your class. You can even attach files (from Google Drive and otherwise), add YouTube videos and provide links. Tip: If you assign an activity outside of Classroom (i.e. a news article to read), you can link to it in an announcement so there’s a record of it in your class. On the announcement screen, you must enter text before you can post your announcement. Going left to right, you have options to upload an attachment, attach content you have in Google Drive, add a link to a YouTube video, and add a link to any website. If you are making this announcement across multiple classes, click the dropdown arrow next to the class name to select another course you are a teacher of. Click the POST button to send out your announcement. If you aren't ready to post your announcement, clicking the small arrow next to POST will allow you to save your announcement as a draft. Students may comment on announcements. Posting an assignment Creating an assignment is exactly the same as creating an announcement except for the addition of a due date and the ability to give each student their own copy of a Google Document/Sheet/Slide/Form. Enter a title for your assignment. After you have created your assignment in Veracross, you should copy your descriptive text from Veracross and paste it in the description area of your Classroom assignment. You can set a due date and an optional time. You can also set the assignment to not have a due date. Just like the announcement, you can add attachments, Google Documents, YouTube videos, and links to an assignment. You can add multiple resources to the same assignment. If you are adding a Google Document file, you have the option to allow students to only view, to edit the file(all students have access to the same file), or to give each student their own copy. Click the ASSIGN button to post the assignment. Students will get an email and notification on their iPad from the Classroom app immediately. Using the dropdown arrow, you can save your assignment as a draft if you aren't ready to post just yet. If you are attaching a Google Form to an assignment (usually an online quiz or survey) the student receives a link in their view of the assignment that takes them straight to the Form. They click submit to finish the Form/quiz and it automatically marks them as done in Google Classroom. How the assignment looks This is what your assignment looks like after you post it. The time you posted the assignment The title of your assignment The descriptive text of your assignment A listing of any attachments you have added to the assignment Any class comments from both you and the students The due date of the assignment. This is editable if you need to make a change to the due date. The text turns red if the assignment is due the next day. A listing of how many students have turned in the assignment. Clicking that area takes you to a list of the students in your class and the work they have submitted.

Google Classroom allows you to assign work and collect it. What Google Classroom does not have is a gradebook - Veracross features a gradebook you can use. Google Classroom makes it easy to quickly provide students feedback either directly on their document by inserting comments or by leaving a comment in the grading list. The Stream For the assignment you are assessing, locate the assignment in the stream. Clicking on the assignment title will show you the list of all students enrolled in the class. Clicking on the numbers allows you to filter your view by who has turned in their assignment or by who has not turned in their work yet. Once a student has turned in their work, you become an editor of their document and their Google Document is locked into View only mode for them. Students will not see any comments you add using the comment system in Google Docs until you return the work to them. If you would like for them to view your comments while you are commenting on their work, you will need to change the sharing permissions on their document to Can Comment. Alternatively, you can provide feedback in Google Classroom. Students will get an email and a notification when you give back feedback from within Google Classroom. Points Google Classroom defaults to 100 points for an assignment. Above the list of student names is the point value for the assignment. A drop-down menu allows you to change the points possible to 1, 20, 50, 100 or mark as “Ungraded.” Clicking on the point values allows you to type over the default value and insert a custom value. At this time, decimal or letter values are not possible. Enter student points earned by clicking on the slot in each students row. Pressing enter or tab does not go to the next student. Use your mouse to select the next student and type their grade. View All Student Work Student attachments are automatically saved in a folder in Google Drive. Above the list of student names is a button to link to the folder in Google Classroom that has that assignments student work. Student work is appended with their name to make it easy to identify their work in Google Drive. You can click on individual student assignments or use preview mode in Google Drive to view multiple students quickly. Returning work When students submit an attachment to an assignment the teacher becomes the owner of the document and the student loses editing rights. Returning work to students allows them to have editing rights. Check the checkbox next to each student you wish to return work to. This is done automatically if you insert a score for a student. Click the blue return button to return the work. Writing process If you are allowing students to resubmit work with corrections after you return their work to them, students have a chance to resubmit their work for the same assignment. You can view each students record of their submissions by clicking the submission history link for each student. When you return the student work and if you change their grade, the student will be notified when you click the return button. View all assignments for all of your classes Instead of locating the assignment in the stream you can start by click on the Classroom main menu icon in the upper left hand corner. This is 3 lines stacked. From the menu, choose “Assignments” which is listed second under “Home.” The assignment list shows all of the assignments. In the same way as if the assignments were listed in the stream you can click on the assignment title to view a list of all students or click on the number done to only view a list of students who have submitted the assignment. If you have graded or provided feedback to students you can click on the 3 stacked dots on the right-hand side of each assignment. This will reveal the option to "Mark as reviewed." Marking as reviewed removes the assignment from the assignment list and moves it to the "Reviewed" tab. In the next post, we will go over how to create a short question/discussion to students in the class stream at any time, with options to allow students to edit their own answer, and to see and reply to classmates’ answers. Students answer the question in the class stream, and teachers have the option to grade answers.

Students will log into Google Classroom with their FCS account information. You can enroll in our Employee Training class using this code to experience Classroom as a student: q742a5p.  After logging in, students will see any classes that have been activated for them by teachers that used the classes FCIT created or the classes teachers created themselves and provided a code for them to use. Title of class. The 3 dots allow a student to unenroll from a class. If a student is not showing in your Classroom list all of a sudden, they may have unenrolled. The teacher's name and profile photo. You should upload a profile photo to make your class more inviting. The student's Google Drive folder for the class. All the work a student turns in goes in this folder.

This new employee guide only contains a small amount of our solutions for FCS faculty and staff.  You can access and browse our other guides anytime by visiting: https://fcit.freshservice.com/support/solutions  Here you can browse through the articles, or begin searching for specific terms (like "Veracross gradebook" or "classroom assignments") to see customized articles appear. 

You can save Ruvna's Progressive Web Application (PWA) to your home screen on your Android Device. Saving Ruvna to your home screen allows Ruvna to function like any other app, giving you fast and easy access to Ruvna in the event of an emergency or drill. Note: Ruvna is not available in the Google Play Store. Follow the steps below to add the Ruvna app to your Android device. Step 1 - Open Chrome Browser Open your device's web browser, preferably Google Chrome.  Note: Android devices often have both a "Google" app along with a "Chrome" app. We recommend using "Chrome" to save Ruvna to your home screen. Step 2 - Navigate to Ruvna URL In Chrome, navigate to your school-specific Ruvna URL (ex: fcs.ruvna.com) Step 3 - Add Ruvna to Home Screen At this point, you should see your school’s Ruvna environment. If your device is not already signed in, you’ll see the sign in screen pictured in Step 2. If your device is already signed in, you’ll see the Ruvna homepage. On either screen, you should now be able to add Ruvna to your home screen. Depending on the type of Android device you have, you may see a banner on the bottom or top of your screen that looks similar to the following: If you don’t see a banner to save Ruvna automatically, you can select the ellipsis icon next to the URL bar and select “Add to Home screen”    Step 4 - Confirm In either way of selecting “Add to Home screen” in step 3, your device should prompt you to confirm that you want to add Ruvna to your home screen. Confirm by selecting “Add” or “Save.”   Step 5 - Access Ruvna from Home Screen After confirming in Step 4, your device will say “Adding Ruvna...” while the shortcut is saved to your device. Once that message goes away, you can navigate back to your home screen to find Ruvna. Depending on your version of Android and device type, the Ruvna icon may be on one of your home screens, in the app drawer, or both. You can now sign in and access Ruvna anytime on your Android device!