Google debuts Classroom, an education platform for teacher-student communication

[Arthur]

To sign up for the invite-only beta, click here.

 

Source: Google (via TechCrunch)

 

Today, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, we’re announcing a preview of Classroom, a new, free tool in the Google Apps for Education suite. It helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease. Classroom is based on the principle that educational tools should be simple and easy to use, and is designed to give teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn.

 

With Classroom, you'll be able to:

 

• Create and collect assignments: Classroom weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly. They can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback to individual students.
  
• Improve class communications: Teachers can make announcements, ask questions and comment with students in real time—improving communication inside and outside of class.
  
• Stay organized: Classroom automatically creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student. Students can easily see what’s due on their Assignments page.
  

We know that protecting your students’ privacy is critical. Like the rest of our Apps for Education services, Classroom contains no ads, never uses your content or student data for advertising purposes, and is free for schools.

 

Google is tackling the persistent need in education for better software with Classroom, a new tool launching in beta preview to help teachers make, collect and track student assignments, and to help them better communicate with their classes.

 

The Classroom app is part of Google’s Apps for Education lineup of products, and it uses Docs, Drive and Gmail to make assignment creation and tracking easier than when you’d do those things manually. Basically, Google has taken a process that many were already using and streamlined it to make it more useful. Google has a huge advantage over other startups trying to do the same as a result; there’s an immense built-in existing population of users to get onboard.

 

It also incorporates class communication tools, letting teachers make announcements, ask questions and field student responses in real-time. Plus the whole thing’s free for schools, and Google also won’t even use the data that moves through the platform or display ads in Classroom, either, in accordance with its new policy announced last week.

 

So far, Google is keeping Classroom invite-only, with educators invited to apply to the preview program for access. They’ll open the gates to that first group of pilot testers in around a month’s time, and Google expects to release it widely by September – in time for the next school year.

 

Edited May 6, 2014 by Arthur

[IrritableTech]

This has the potential to be brilliant - or rubbish. As a google school, I hope it is the former.

[Mcshammer_dj]

This has the potential to be brilliant - or rubbish. As a google school, I hope it is the former.

 

but you should expect it to be the latter

[Bananas]

It will be really good but hardly anyone will use it and after 18 months or so it will be pulled much to the annoyance of the hardcore group who use it a lot and find it really useful

[Arthur]

This has the potential to be brilliant - or rubbish.

I agree. There's a very high chance Classroom could join the recently deceased Reader in the Google Graveyard if it isn't widely adopted.

 

[caffrey]

new video, looks nice

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K26iyyQMp_g&app=desktop

[hardtailstar]

I want it!

[EvLPhenom]

Agree it looks very good and very useful. The only thing that would concern me is what @Bananas said that if you were to use it and it went well but then was pulled because of the overall usage not being high enough for google to keep it running. Could be very promising though.

[Arthur]

New video from Google.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K26iyyQMp_g

[hardtailstar]

That would be idea would be good for clubs etc,

 

Easy way of sending out letters and getting replies.

[Scrambles]

I've only seen the video's, but it looks too simplistic for our needs. Just going to stick with Moodle / Turnitin

Looks like it would be perfect for Primary

[caffrey]

Got my invite, I'll have a look later

[NotSoFast]

I've had a play. I think when combined with Drive it will give us everything we need. A lot depends on the MIS sync tool.

[Roberto]

So it's a rubbish (in the sense that it's lacking in features) VLE then?

[NotSoFast]

I think it depends which features of your vle you currently use. When I surveyed staff they use it almost exclusively for sharing files externally, with literally 2 or 3 using hand in functionality. Nobody uses forums or anything else. For us, then, Drive and Classroom provide a free and simple way to do those things, with one less login to remember and one less licence to pay for (Fronter). It won't work for schools who make extensive use of all the features of their vle.

[IrritableTech]

So it's a rubbish (in the sense that it's lacking in features) VLE then?

 

It is very basic - but that will tick boxes for people who want a simple, familiar platform.

[Roberto]

My one concern in recommending it is that while I can see the attractiveness at the low end, there's nowhere to go when you outgrow it, whereas platforms like Blackboard and Moodle can be whatever you want them to be. In fairness, if it's aimed at primary schools and the like, I'll freely admit I've got no idea what happens at that end of the market, so I don't know how realistic a threat 'outgrowing' the product as it stands is.

 

It will be interesting to see if Google develop it further or let it languish... in my experience people who are hit by a complex product on day one can be overwhelmed and scared off... but equally people who are hit with a simple product that encourages them to get to grips with it can often end up wanting more.

[NotSoFast]

I think there's quite a lot you can do with it, if you get your hands dirty. For example, quizzes are easy in Google forms, which can be attached to an assignment. Classroom really tidies up addons like Doctopus and Goobric, giving them a clean and simple UI. Because it's all based around Drive, it's extensible via further addons. I also think it's a fair bet Google will develop this further as education is where they're making inroads with Chromebooks and where all their future customers are now. On a different note, I could see Classroom, Hangouts and Drive working nicely for distance learning, not just the schools market.

[TheScarfedOne]

This looks pretty interesting, and as others have said, the extensible nature of the G-Apps platforms gives lots of potential

[Bananas]

We just spent thousands on custom moodle and now the head of IT wants to use this, what a muppet.

 

I wouldn't trust this until it's been around a few years I just don't trust Google not to pull it

[Arthur]

Google Classroom is now available.

 

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/more-teaching-less-tech-ing-google.html

[fiza]

Just waiting for it to activate for our domain. Its there in the Admin Console but only in name.

[maark]

Had a play with this and got one member of staff using it - seems fairly straightforward to use.

I like the way it creates a classroom folder and a subfolder for each class in google drive for teacher and student..

We are using the class code to get students to enrol in a class as I have not got all classes synced from sims at the moment.

Although you can only use announcements and assignments there is a lot of potential as you can attach and link to other resources.

Is anybody else using it yet and what do you think?

[machin05]

We just started having a look at this. For sharing google docs with your classes, it looks great. Just takes all of the manual process out of the teachers' hands. The Assignment "Turn In" is a nice feature too. Not sure if it will replace our Moodle, but it's definitely something we're going to trial with a few groups.

 

One thing that is lacking is being able to share classes/courses between teachers in a department. If you could have more than one teacher assigned to a course, that would be very beneficial to us. We tried to hack around at it by copying the class folder into the second teacher's Google Drive "Classroom" folder, but no joy.

[Arthur]

Google made a few improvements to Classroom today. Click the link for more details.

 

Improving Google Classroom for students around the world

 

• Full grade exporting
  
• Sorting by first and last name for students
  
• Comment control over the stream
  
• Mark assignments as done
  
• Easier membership to classes via groups