GoGuardian Teacher vs. Google Classroom

We use GoGuardian daily for monitoring students to ensure they are not off task, accessing inappropriate material at school, monitoring students during an assignment and more easily being able to help them if noticing they are struggling or in need of intervention on their work. It has also been used very well during times when schooling has been virtual as it has allowed us to more easily work with students who are not physically on campus.

Incentivized

- During the pandemic, the college needs a fast and easy solution to conduct Google Classroom. The integration with Google Accounts and Google Meet allows the university to run and access the Classroom on a large scale. - The teacher wants to conduct some exams in third-party software like Moodle. But we have not found any plugin for this famous open-source learning platform. The exam system in Google Classroom is so poor that it doesn't even fully screen the test when students are writing their exams.

• Cloud-based. Teachers do not have to monitor from just one device - they can do it from any device.
• GoGuardian allows teachers to lock a student's screen when he/she needs the students attention.
• GoGuardian allows the teacher to view all students' devices simultaneously.

Incentivized

• Student-teacher communication - I love using Classroom for this because my students can always go back and check what was on Classroom by looking through the stream. This way they don't have to go dig through emails to find what they're looking for.
• Posting to multiple classes - I can post the same announcement or assignment to multiple classes at once without having to repeat the process or send separate emails.
• Streamlining grading - when students turn work in on Classroom, it all goes to one place and then when I'm grading I can open their documents directly from Classroom or my Drive folder. This way, I'm not looking through emails and Google Doc shared files for their assignment.

Incentivized

• The initial learning curve of the program took some time, but then was easy to follow.
• We were only able to start using it after our IT department sent our classes to us.

Incentivized

• Although usually in the discussion with other LMS apps such as Schoology and Canvas, Google Classroom doesn't possess as in-depth of a platform. There is no ability to set individual learning paths, pace student work with completion settings, or embed other apps directly into teacher-created assignments.
• The assignment creation options are limited. Teachers can only choose from creating an assignment (usually a link with directions), a material (usually a doc/slide/website, etc), a question, and a quiz.
• With gamification taking on a new lens in education, there really isn't any way to use gamification elements with Google Classroom. There isn't any way to create Individual learning paths, or use badges and micro-credentials within Classroom. Outside programs would have to be used.

Incentivized

For a technology-heavy school, it is a necessary and good tool for managing classroom use of laptops. It is easy to set up and use. Helps track time on task and internet usage. Another source of data when speaking to parents about student work and activity. Can help plan and manage work time when you have limited devices.

Incentivized

Testing is particularly important in online learning, and Google Classroom falls far short of other learning management systems in this regard. Security is also a concern: while account control is reasonable for the account used with Google Classroom, the person controlling a particular account is often able to, for example, forward or download proprietary materials.

This is only a product I would recommend to a humanities teacher. Math and science teachers cannot use this product the same way that I can as an English teacher. It is great for word process and for reading, but unable to handle the demands of math and science. Therefore, I would highly recommend this product to English or Social Studies teachers, but NOT math or science teachers

Incentivized

We have had very little trouble in accessing Google Classroom. Our issues, if any, have risen from our server and not the Google servers.

Incentivized

The support is great. On the rare occasion that I've had to reach out to support they have been very quick to respond and extremely helpful. I've also had teachers reach out directly to support themselves. Most of the time I don't even know that a teacher has reached out to support until after the fact. They always seem satisfied.

Incentivized

Since this platform is provided by Google, the technical support is better than any others, and we are not required to bother about the space constraints for adding the contents. If we have a good uninterrupted internet facility we can access Google Classroom without any delay or lag. They have app support in both Android and iPhone.

It was relatively easy to implement due to the simplicity of the platform. Even our more technology challenged teachers found it easy to get started with Google Classroom.

Incentivized

At the time we purchased GoGuardian there were no other alternatives that came even close to the functionality of this product. Over time I'm sure that some new products have been released. We, however, have not explored any other software suites for classroom management. We may in the future but for now, we are locked into GoGuardian Teacher.

Incentivized

Skyward and Google Classroom are completely different programs that are used for completely different things. The only comparable areas are communication with students. Skyward does so through the class rosters and message center and Google Classroom does so through the classrooms for each student and their teacher, but each is unique in their own way.

Incentivized

It is very easy to push out this program across our buildings. Teachers are able to use it without much trouble.

Incentivized

• District invested a large sum into the program - but it has increased student engagement in the district.
• Teachers are more aware of how on-task students are in the classroom.
• Teachers are able to track sessions with the ease of scheduling before-hand.

Incentivized

• Students are able to continue learning in a remote environment
• Parents have a single, consistent organization structure to make it easy to track assignments and progress for multiple children
• Much better solution than the quickly assembled Zoom-and-gloom of the previous spring when school abruptly went remote with no planning

Incentivized