Create Your First Class in Apple Classroom

The Apple Classroom app is a really powerful tool to help you manage the devices in your classroom, all remotely from your main teacher iPad. Apple say it’s an app that will help teachers focus on the teaching so students can focus on the learning, by removing that friction that can sometimes occur when using devices in your class.

So on the Apple Classroom app, we’re going to set up a new class for your students, and all we’re going to do is tap on the button in the middle. You’re going to give your class a name – perhaps the period, or a year group, or the lesson you’re teaching – and then you can choose a symbol and icon colour as well.

I’ll just call mine Computing Year 4 for this particular class, and then I’m going to choose the internet icon and a nice green colour. You can visually separate your classes here, so it’s really quick to find them in the future. And obviously, if you teach multiple children in multiple classes, you’ll want to make a new one for each group of students you’ve got.

Then when you’ve created the class, you’re going to tap onto it, and at this point we need to invite some students to join our class. It’s a bit lonely at the moment – it’s just me here.

Now, the process of inviting students is quite straightforward. I’ve got a four-digit code on the screen, and I can actually use the AirPlay button underneath that to share it on the interactive whiteboard or my Apple TV in the class. And all the students need to do on their device, as you can see on screen now, is to go into the Settings app and then wait for the Classroom section to appear near the top.

From here, they’ll then see the class you’ve just created. They can add their name, they’ll see who the teacher is, and they can type in that four-digit code. When the students then press Join, you’ll see on your iPad all those students popping up on your screen.

I’ve added six students to my demo class here, and when I’m done I can then simply tap off of this screen, and I can see all six students on my page.

Now, at the moment I can see their names. If they set a profile picture, I could see that as well. But really I want to see their iPad screen – that’s the key to this app for me – and to do that, all I’m going to do is tap the screens icon on the top toolbar. That’s the one with the four squares that I’m pointing at now, and then you can see the iPad device screens in real time on your teacher iPad.

This works for a whole class of students or a small group, and if you want to learn some more about Apple Classroom and see what else you can do in your class, tap on the playlist on the end screen here where I’ve made a whole series of videos guiding you through Apple Classroom.