Some Powerful Updates Coming to Google Drive and CLassroom

April 11, 2015
Base on the suggestions and recommendations of users, Google is planning a bunch of new interesting updates for both Google Drive and Classroom.These releases are to be rolled out in the next coming weeks. Most of these updates are particularly focused on enhancing the sharing options within and across these services. Below is a brief review of these updates together with an illustrative  video  that outlines all of the new sharing features coming to Drive for Work and Apps for Education.

1- Set sharing settings by organizational units 
This is our favourite of them all. This new feature will allow teachers to have a customized sharing functionality on Drive which will let them share with people outside school (i.e. parents) while restricting students' sharing options to only within school.

2- Reset passwords quickly and securely
With this upcoming update, IT admins in schools will be able to allow students to securely reset their passwords so they don’t lose any valuable time waiting.

3- Share outside your organization more easily
With this option, things you share with others on Drive (e.g PDFs, docs, videos) can be accessed by recipients even without them having to have a Drive account.

4- Set up custom alerts to know when things happen
This is similar to Google Alert. When activated, Google Apps admins will be able to create custom alerts to notify them of things such as  suspicious logins, track Drive activity ( e.g. see see when files are created, edited, printed, downloaded and previewed in Drive).

Here is a video that features all the new features coming to Google Drive and Classroom

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Google Classroom Released Two wonderful Updates Today

February 25, 2015
Google released today  some very good  new features to Google Classroom. Teachers now are able to customize the look and feel of their classes by uploading their own images to use as themes. There is also a new cropping tool that allows teachers to crop their images to the perfect dimensions and it can automatically pick a matching class colour.

 Google Classroom also provides you with a set of pre-made photos to use as templates for your class in case you don’t have a photo to use. There are actually 18 new images and 30 pattern themes in the gallery.Google Classroom also announced some new updates for its iOS and Android apps that include:

• Students and teachers can now view the About page in the mobile app for quick access to their class materials and resources
• On iOS, students can now add images, videos, and any other files to assignments from other apps
• Your favorite emoji are now available on the Android app [insert smiley face here]
• We’ve made overall changes that will increase the speed of the app’s performance, so you can get your work done even faster

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What Teachers Can and Can't Do on Google Classroom

February 1, 2015
Are you still wondering what Google Classroom is all about and whether you should start using it or not? This video explanation created by Amy Mayer  is a definitely a must watch. Amy provides a concise overview of the current features of Google Classroom. She started with the things you can do with Google Classroom and used some examples of how teachers are implementing it in their classrooms; how it is used for assignments, how it is integrated with Google Drive, how teachers share files and documents, and many more. Amy also talked about some other features such as how to manage your ‘students tab’ to either allow or disallow students to post comments and interact with you. You will also get to know how to generate a class code that students can use to join your class and other pretty cool stuff that you can do on Google Classroom.

Related: 6 Great Things You Can Do with Google Classroom

Amy also talked some about some of the things that are not yet available on Google Classroom such as for example:

• Google Classroom does not have a sophisticated threaded message capabilities
• It does not let students watch Youtube videos if YouTube is blocked
• It does not provide a way to add parents or co-teachers in as anything other than students.
• No way to create a sub-group within a group

Watch the video below to learn more about what you can and can't do with Google Classroom

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Excellent Google Classroom Visual Guides for Teachers and Students

January 27, 2015
Today I spent sometime curating some EdTech resources on Google Classroom and I came across these wonderful visual guides created by Google Education Trainer Michael Fricano II. The guides are meant to help students and teachers better use the recent Google Classroom apps for both iOS and Android. Michael provides a visual illustration of the different components of these apps and shows what each of them is used for.

These visual guides come in two versions: one for teachers and another one for students. Note here that the interface of Google Classroom app for teachers is a bit different from the one of students’ and hence the creation of two different illustrations. The guides are also available in Google Doc format which you can download, save or print to use in  your class.Enjoy and make sure you follow Michael to stay updated of his marvellous EdTech work.

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Everything Teachers Need to Know about Google Classroom

January 21, 2015
Google Classroom is definitely one of the best platforms out there for enhancing teachers workflow. It provides a set of powerful features that make  it an ideal tool to use with students. ‘Classroom helps teachers save time, keep classes organized, and improve communication with students. It is available to anyone with Google Apps for Education, a free suite of productivity tools including Gmail, Drive and Docs.’

For those of you new to Google Classroom, the video tutorials below will provide you with a very good introduction to what this platform is all about. You will also get to learn how to use some of its features and how to seamlessly integrate it in your teaching.

1- Getting Started with Google Classroom by Amy Mayer

2- Here is a series of video tutorials from Currie hillman on :

• How to sign up for Google Classroom
• How to create a class
• Announcements and assignments on Google Classroom
• Student view in Google classroom
• Grading , feedback and view from Google Drive

3- My Google Classroom workflow Solution by Michael Poke

4- How to share from other apps in Google Classroom

5- How to snap a photo in Google Classroom

Photo source: Chromebooks in Education

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12 Ways Teachers Can use Google Classroom

January 20, 2015
Google Classroom which is only six months old has managed to host over 30 million assignments turned in by teachers and students. This is a big sign that the tool is being widely endorsed within the education community particularly in the States. With this increasing popularity of Google Classroom, Google recently released some new updates to enhance its performance and make it more mobile friendly. The major update is the release of Google Classroom apps for both iPad and Android .

For those of you who are not familiar with google Classroom, here are some of the things you can do with this platform:

  1- Teachers can use Google Classroom to create and collect assignments paperlessly.
2- Automatically make copies of Google documents for each student
3- Create Drive folders for each assignment and for each student to help everyone keep organized
4- Provide direct and real-time feedback and grades
5- Keep track of who has turned in assignments
6- Quickly review assignments
7- Send announcements and start class discussions instantly
8- Students can see all of their assignments on an assignments page
9- Students can share resources with each other or provide answers to questions on the stream.
10- Students can open their assignments and work on them right from their phone or tablet.
11- Students and teachers can view their classes and communicate with their classmates in real time
12- Students can keep track of what’s due on the Assignments page and begin working with just a click

Watch this video to learn more about Google Classroom

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Google Classroom Is Now Available for Both iPad and Android

January 14, 2015
Google announced today the release of Google Classroom apps for both iOS and Android.using these apps students and teachers will be able to connect wherever they are with an Internet connection.”Classroom is designed to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly, including time-saving features like the ability to automatically make a copy of a Google Document for each student. It also creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student to help keep everyone organized.”

Here some of the things students and teachers can do with Google Classroom apps:

• Students can keep track of what’s due on the Assignments page and begin working with just a click.
• Teachers can quickly see who has or hasn't completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback and grades right in Classroom.
• Students and teachers can view their classes and communicate with their classmates in real time
• Students can open their assignments and work on them right from their phone or tablet.
• Teachers can keep track of who has turned in work and review the assignment - at school or on the go. 

Check out Google Classroom for iPad and Android to learn more.

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