Google Classroom - Adding Materials as Resources

At any time you can share resources with your students within Classroom.  This is one of the advantages of using Classroom as what I call a "launching pad" - it can be the one place students go to get to any resources needed for your class, cutting down on transition time and confusion.  Students can always know they can get to the sites and materials by going to Classroom.  Additionally, it can help support students that are absent or looking for extra practice outside of school hours.  And, since it integrates so nicely with your Drive, it can be more efficient for you also.

Here is how you add materials (Note: as the options available are the same for adding other items such as assignment they are covered in depth in this post.):

Click on Classwork while in your Classroom -

Click on Create -

Select Material - 

There are many options available.  These are available when you create any of the items under "Create" -

1 - Courses to "assign" the materials
2 - Which students will see the materials
3 - Title of material(s)
4 - Description (optional)
5 - Topic assignment (optional)
6 - Place to attach resource(s)
7 - Posting

Below is more about each option in more detail. 

1 - Course to assign the material(s): If you click on the course name here, you will see a drop down of all the courses you are an instructor for.  You can save yourself time by choosing to add this to multiple courses at one time by checking the box next to each course you would like it in -

2 - Who will see the materials: Alternately (NOTE: you cannot use this feature if putting the materials in multiple courses), you can select to display the materials to only a select number of students.  This might be useful in cases where you are assigning materials for extension work, remedial work, or even group work within the course -

3 - Title of material(s): the title that will display with the material(s)
4 - Description of material(s): you can add a more detailed description, which may include instructions as to what to do or steps to take with the provided material(s).
5 - Topic: you can choose to add a topic assignment to the material(s)
6 - Attach resources:  This is where it can get really interesting. You can bundle multiple resources within the one item.  So, for instance, perhaps at the beginning of the year I am adding all materials needed for the course so I attach the course syllabus from my Drive, a link to the online resources provided by my textbook with a link, a welcoming YouTube video I've created, etc.  This can be especially useful with a project as all items related to the project will then be found together in one spot -
6a - Inserting a file from your computer will actually upload the file into your Classroom Drive folder -

 6b - Inserting a file from your Google Drive will let you search for the item, or add it from one of your Drive folders -

6C - The video icon will connect you to a YouTube search, but you can also do a search by URL -

6D - And you can always add a link -

After completing the Title (only mandatory item), and anything optional you want to include, you can post the material(s) by using the Post button in the bottom right -

However, if you click the downward pointing arrow next to the word post, you actually get some options.  You can schedule the post to appear at a future date and time; you can also save it as a draft to finish later.