Abstract:

The emergence of the Covid-19 pandemic produced profound adaptations, posing challenges with regard to everyone's daily lives. In education, technology have been used to continue teaching during the covid-19 isolation in 2021, using remote means. Teacher's role and their pedagogical strategies involved the use of technological resources so that, through these, students received contents and experiences, bringing the school closer to the students and the continuity of teaching, but in other ways.

This investigation, created by the first author was carried out during the mandatory confinement due to Covid-19, from February to April 2021. This investigation presents a study of the use of Google classroom tools using remote teaching Physics and Chemistry contents, in a public school in the north of Portugal.

According to Silva, C., Figueira, C. & Santos, J. (2019), Google Classroom can be an excellent tool in the teaching and learning process, as long as the teacher considers the objectives of the tasks, the available means to do it and how to evaluate it.

The Google Workspace for Education is a free, easy-to-use tools that provides a flexible and virtual space for learning, collaboration, and communication that makes it easy for everyone in the school community to collaborate; boosts productivity by providing teachers with easy-to-use tools to help simplify tasks and save time; allows communication via email, meet or video; facilitates the organization of tasks, schedule meetings and help keep track of tasks; and provides reliable security as it minimally protects against digital threats with the best multi-layered security. Thus, the dynamization of classes, the availability of materials and diversified assessments, are some of the possibilities of the Google Classroom tool. According to Carneiro et al. (2018), the use of Google Classroom enables pedagogical strategies, such as better interaction between peers and between students and teacher, and stimulates research, as it enhances students' autonomy.

The aim of the study was to evaluate, in two 9th grade classes and three 7th grade classes, of the 3rd cycle of basic education, during social isolation due to Covid-19, the promotion of learning and the involvement of students in carrying out tasks, regarding the Physics and Chemistry contents, in a school in the north of Portugal, using Google Classrooms' tools.

The methodology adopted is a case study, based on the analysis of the data collected, which are the tasks proposed to the students and the response to a questionnaire Google form, that evaluated the students learning. The same questionnaire, was answered by students in the last week of remote activities and in the first week of face-to-face classes. During remote teaching, the classes were synchronous and the teacher was on-line with her students three hours per week.

The results show that during remote teaaching most of the students did deliver the tasks on time and so that shows they were committed to the work. Comparing the learning results between the two moments of evaluation, was verified an increase in academic performance.

The students' success during remote teaching is due to the use of these tools and to the incentive and constant encouragement of the teacher to finish their work and submit it on time.

Keywords:

Google classroom, motivation, remote teaching, physics, chemistry.