Google Classroom is out of its testing phase and is now open to the teachers all over the world. Classroom is a tool that allows educators all over the world to connect with and collaborate by integrating Docs, Drive, and Gmail.
When it was unveiled in May, Google was inviting applications from teachers to test its “beta” product. During the beta phase more than 100K teachers availed the service. With Classroom, teachers can assign work to students and can also collect assignments. Students can communicate with teachers and also among them by posting in a “Stream”.
After the period of initial testing, Google has now announced that the Classroom is launched to the public so all who have access to the Google Apps for Education can now use it.
While creating assignments teachers can upload files directly from their Drive and choose to automatically make copies for each student. After the students submit their assignments teachers can grade their work by assigning a grade out of 100.
While in the testing phase, Google collected feedback from teachers and have incorporated some major changes.
Earlier teachers would have to wait for the students to turn in their assignments before they can communicate with them. Now teachers can help their students along the way even before they submit their assignments. Also an “About” page feature (the course overview page) has been added to all Courses so teachers can post basic information and material about each course on that page.
Google Classroom is currently available in 42 languages.