Google has introduced over 50 new features across its education products, to enable a more effective learning and teaching experience for students and teachers.
It also announced the next era of GSuite for Education, more robust security tools for teaching and learning, as well as new capabilities for Google Classroom and Google Meet.
Reiterating its commitment at the Learning with Google webcast event, Google also announced that the Teach from Anywhere hub launched in April last year is now available in eight Indian languages, and has helped more than nine lakh people to get started with remote teaching.
Apart from the web-based training resources, Google’s efforts to provide knowledge and access to Google for Education tools like Classroom and Meet have resulted in more than five lakh teachers and educators in states like Maharashtra and Delhi attending webinars for pedagogy and skills development.
Bani Dhawan, Head of Education – South Asia, Google said, “This past year, the education community has inspired us with their creativity and resilience. This ability to learn, and teach, from anywhere is more important now than ever, and won’t end when the pandemic does. Every day, more than a billion people come to Google to find answers or discover something new. Our Learning & Education team works to fuel that curiosity and help people build knowledge by connecting them to great learning experiences through our products — whether it’s Search or YouTube, Google Classroom or Chromebooks. We look forward to working together to reimagine learning and push the boundaries of what is possible, so that everyone has access to the quality learning experiences they deserve.”
The next era of our education products
Google announced the next era of G Suite for Education — Google Workspace for Education – which offers educators and teachers even more choice and control. Google Workspace for Education includes all the products one already uses, like Classroom, Meet, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and many more. Google’s free edition G Suite for Education will be renamed to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals.
For institutions that require more powerful security tools or want to expand the teaching and learning tools available to their instructors, Google is introducing three new paid editions: Google Workspace for Education Standard, The Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Google Workspace for Education Plus (formerly G Suite Enterprise for Education).
More than 170 million students and educators worldwide rely on Google’s suite of tools, and they are bringing many new helpful features to Google Classroom and Google Meet. Some of the new features include:
Google Classroom
Offline mode: Google is making the Classroom Android app work offline, or with intermittent connections. Students will be able to start their work offline, review their assignments, open Drive attachments, and write assignments in Google Docs — all without an internet connection.
Improved mobile grading: They are improving how educators can grade in the Classroom Android app. Google has seen more and more teachers around the world using mobile devices for giving feedback on the go, and these improvements will make it much easier for instructors to switch between student submissions, grade work while viewing an assignment, and share feedback.
Classroom add-ons: Having tools that work well together is so important. Coming later this year to teachers using Education Plus or Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Classroom add-ons let teachers integrate their favourite third-party EdTech tools and content directly into the Classroom interface, all without any extra log-ins.
Google Meet
Multiple moderators: Later this year, meetings will support multiple hosts, making it easier to partner with others helping facilitate the class. All hosts will have access to moderation controls, so they can share the load of managing who can join, controlling who can use the chat or present their screen, and more.
End meeting for all: Teachers will have the option to “End meeting for all”, so they have complete control, and can prevent students from staying on a call after the teacher has left — including in breakout rooms.
Mute all: To make it easier to teach without interruption, educators will be able to easily mute all participants at once, and decide whether students can unmute themselves or not.
