Tuesday, September 15

Homework not on paper

So this is something new for the parents of kids in elementary school these days: Google Classroom. Today, I got schooled on the newest format for teaching my 8-year-old kid, from my 8-year-old kid. Required electronic classroom participation is a real thing now, you guys.
We had to download Google Chrome to my computer, then she proceeded to sign herself in to Google Classroom. She's got her own e-mail address for logging in (it's not active for actual e-mails yet), and a password that she's already memorized. There were menus and click-throughs, and all the bells and whistles. I tried to keep up while sitting alongside her, but she flew through the pages and clicks so fast that I could barely register what she was doing.
She submitted some homework on it, as kind of a primer activity, I guess. She kinda showed me around, but was so proud of herself for knowing it all so well, she wasn't interested at all in slowing down too much for me. As for the activities on the web site, she's got a chat function (sorta) with the teacher and her classmates, she can keep track of all her assignments, and she can set up reminders and all that for anything else. As an example, her weekly paragraph is no longer to be printed and turned in, but proofread on the screen and submitted to the teacher's inbox. Granted, saving paper. But really, I miss homework for being homework. But I guess that makes me OLD.

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