Archiving Classes
As we look to summer, it’s time to start to think about housekeeping for your Google stuff. Teachers and students who are regular users of Google Classroom should know how to clear away their classes at the end of the school year so they have a fresh and clean Google Classroom dashboard in the fall. Check out the video below to learn how teachers can archive their classes at the end of the year to make way for the new school year.
Archive Classes & Re-Use Posts for Future Years
Worried you might want some of your old class information? No problem! Teachers can “archive” classes to make room for new ones. Archived classes remain available to teachers so that they can retrieve posts as needed the following year. Teachers often ask me if they can simply re-use their current Google Classes for the following school year. It’s not recommended because all of your due dates, not to mention students will be different. Try out the “Re-Use Post” feature which allows you to retrieve previous assignments, even from classes you archive, so that you can quickly pop them into new classes. To re-use a post from a previous year:
- Click + Re-Use Post
- Select a Class to re-use a post from
- Select the Post to use – NOTE: If you have attachments that you want to give a copy to each student, be sure to click the box in the bottom right corner that says “Create New Copies of All Attachments”.
Students Can “Unenroll” from Classes
Additional Considerations
- Naming Convention: If you didn’t include the school year as part of your class name when you set up your class, be sure to “rename” it so that you can easily identify archived classes from year to year.
- Hide Old Classroom Calendars from View: If you haven’t already done so, you’ll want to “hide” the Classroom Assignment Calendar that is associated with classes you arvhived. To do so, go to Google Calendar & find the calendar you want to remove from the left hand side. Click on the drop down arrow next to the calendar name & choose “Hide from List”.
- Return Student Work: Consider returning all student work before you archive so that ownership will revert to students and files won’t clog up your Google Drive.
