Google has announced Classroom, a new suite of apps intended for schools. The idea of Classroom has been done before, offering tools for teachers to be more interactive and live with their students when it comes to work and feedback.
The Classroom suite is made of three services, Docs, Drive and Gmail. All three are used for teachers to assign work, get it back, give feedback and really integrate with the classroom in a way that was not possible in the old days of paper and textbooks.
Docs has multiple tools available for teachers to use, including Document, Presentation, Spreadsheet, Form and Drawing. The Drive system allows users to store assignments in the right folder and organise their folders properly and Gmail allows students to contact their teacher about completed work and discuss feedback.
Students will be able to check out what classes they have on a certain date and make sure they know what subjects will be taught. This will also be a way for teachers to reach out and tell students what to study before coming into the classroom.
On top of all that, Google is pushing out Classroom for free, but there are a few catches to make sure they continue making money. One is storage, Google could easily make sure educational facilities are paying for a lot of cloud storage, to make sure they don’t get overdrawn.
Classroom is not available just yet, Google has said they will play a monthly raffle for schools that sign up to their invite program and will officially launch the suite in September for all schools with Google Apps for Education.
This is a big move by Google, but it works with their push into educational facilities through Chromebooks. The majority of sales from Chromebook’s come from schools buying them in bulk, something Google has taken note of and is starting to push.
Chromebooks are not the only device Google wants teachers and students to use and we wouldn’t be surprised if getting Classroom meant getting Google Android tablets, Chromebook’s and Chromecast for a much cheaper price.
Chromecast has just been updated to support Presentation, allowing students to present work to the class through the Chromecast. The student will sign in on his account and then go to the Google Drive folder, where he will be able to open all documents for the class.
