Google’s Teaching management app Classroom is now available to teachers worldwide after several months of pilot phase.
According to a Google blog post, search engine’s Classroom allows teachers to use Google Drive, Docs and Gmail to assign and collect students’ work online as well as provides a communication channel outside of classroom to teachers and students. Teachers can also use the tool to check students’ progress on assignments, make announcements and create individual Drive folders for each student. On the other hand, students can make connections with other classmates, like Google+.
Classroom is available in 42 languages. Google also said the tool is ad-free and information will not be used for marketing purposes in order to protect users’ privacy.
Zach Yeskel, product manager of Classroom, said the tool aims to help “teachers spend more time teaching and less time shuffling papers.”
The giant company unveiled the app in May and piloted the program with some educators who signed up to try the preview stage.
Google has used the reviews to make a few modifications to Classroom. For example, teachers could only view assignments after they were turned in, but with the new version they can comment along the way. Google also added an “About” section for teachers to put information and materials are their class.
One of the schools who got early access to Classroom was Fontbonne Hall Academy in Brooklyn, New York.
“You can’t stay in teaching and keep going to the old ways,” Sister Rosemarie DeLoro, a 60-year teacher at the academy, said.
Google’s preview of Classroom:
Photo Credit: Google
