Google Meet (Class Time)
For all “classroom” settings in HCA@Home, all participants will join using Google Meet.
Teachers will schedule the classes and invite the students to each class. That means that all you have to do to “enter the classroom”, is go to
Once you’re logged in using your HCA Google Account, you’ll see any and all classes scheduled for you to join that day, with a “Join” button next to each one.
While we want all students to participate fully in their classes — and, keep in mind we know that you have no where else to go! — note that the live classes will be recorded and accessible by everyone enrolled in the class shortly after the Google Meet has finished. Students are encouraged to take advantage of this if they want to review some teaching.
To learn more: Join a Video Meeting from Hangouts Meet Help.
Google Classroom (Course work and Quizzes)
Teachers will invite each student to each enrolled subject or course. Invitations will arrive in your HCA Email Account.
Once they accept these invitations, students will be able to see all their courses by visiting
This website is where students will find all lesson materials, handouts, links to supplement the lesson, or videos recorded by their teachers for the course. It is also where homework and quizzes will be assigned by teachers and completed for students.
Google Classroom helps students organize all the individual work they need to do for each course.
Introduction to Google Classroom
If all of this is feeling overwhelming, this tutorial might be helpful. Please note that it was not created by HCA or Google, but it focuses on using Google Classroom for school from a parent’s perspective.
Also note! This tutorial mentions you can use Chrome or other browsers to access Google Classroom. For students in HCA@Home, we need them to use Chrome only please.
Here is another tutorial walk-through from a student’s perspective – again, not specific to HCA@Home:
Parents Can Be Guardians
Each student can have one or more Guardian emails attached to their account. This will automatically generate a weekly email sent directly to the Guardian email address that has a summary of assigned work, anything overdue, and upcoming due dates.
G Suite for Education (Documents)
G Suite is a branding term that includes
- GMail (your very own @halifaxchristianacademy email address)
https://mail.google.com - Google Docs (create and share documents with text and formatting)
https://docs.google.com - Google Sheets (create and share spreadsheets)
https://sheets.google.com - Google Slides (create and share presentations)
https://slides.google.com - Google Drive (organize and share files)
https://drive.google.com
Students in HCA@Home will be expected to use their HCA email account as their Google Account to access all of the above while participating in their schoolwork.
For those of you who may be more familiar with Office 365 or other similar software: G Suite is a replacement for MS Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and One Drive; students will not need any productivity software licensed or installed on their computers.
All of the G Suite software can be used from within the Google Chrome browser, and/or from free apps that can be installed on your smartphones and mobile devices.
The one key thing all students need to know – always use your HCA email account and password to log in to all of the G Suite tools. This preserves your access to the courses, files, and appointments without confusion.
While there is a lot here, this Google’s Documentation on all of this is helpful and thorough, and starts at the very beginning: G Suite Learning Centre.
Google: Introduction G Suite For Education
Google Calendar (Dates and Times)
All students will find their classes and assignments included for them on their Google Calendar, which is accessed from any device at
You can add this using any calendar software that can connect to a Google account, and from as many devices as you wish, using your HCA email address.
Students may also use their calendar to organize independent course work, or to initiate Google Meet times to work with a teacher or classmate outside of class time.
To dig deeper, read Google’s Get Started with Calendar.
Quickschools (Grades & Report Cards)
HCA uses QuickSchools for academic records of all our students. Parents and High School Students can log in here: