Google Apps for Education Coming to Moodle

##AUTHORSPLIT##<--->

Google Apps Education Edition is coming to an open source learning management system near you. Moodlerooms, a Moodle partner, is launching a new enhancement to the open source LMS in collaboration with search giant Google to provide access to the application suite using a single sign-on.

Google Apps Education Edition is the widely deployed hosted application suite that includes communications tools like as Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk; collaboration apps, such as Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Labs (for software code review); and various administration features and APIs for integration with existing systems.

Through the integration, users loaded into Moodle will be automatically loaded into Google Apps Education Edition, "providing users with Web-based e-mail, document authoring, spreadsheets, presentations and sites, all integrated with their online learning platform," explained Moodlerooms' West Coast Managing Director Michael Penney. "This greatly simplifies the task of implementing a collaborative suite, as well as enables institutions to leverage the work they've already done integrating their platforms with their other systems. From a teacher's perspective, this provides an easy way to assign students to collaborative tasks without having to worry about the students having different operating systems or incompatible software or being unable to access an online system. From an IT staffer or CIO's perspective, this provides an integration tested with large-scale data loads and built on industry standard SAML 2.0 and OAuth protocols for secure single sign on and information transfer."

Google provided funding, direction, guidelines, and certain technologies for the solution, while Moodlerooms handled the coding, according to a Moodlerooms spokesperson.

Two educational organizations are piloting the program before it will be released publicly: Project KNOTtT, a group consisting of universities and colleges from Kansas, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas, and Centro Latino, an adult education organization that provides Spanish-language courses.

Further information can be found here.

About the Author

David Nagel is the former editorial director of 1105 Media's Education Group and editor-in-chief of THE Journal, STEAM Universe, and Spaces4Learning. A 30-year publishing veteran, Nagel has led or contributed to dozens of technology, art, marketing, media, and business publications.

He can be reached at [email protected]. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidrnagel/ .


Featured

  • lightbulb

    Call for Speakers Now Open for Tech Tactics in Education: Overcoming Roadblocks to Innovation

    The annual virtual conference from the producers of Campus Technology and THE Journal will return on Sept. 25, 2025, with a focus on emerging trends in cybersecurity, data privacy, AI implementation, IT leadership, building resilience, and more.

  • abstract pattern of cybersecurity, ai and cloud imagery

    Report Identifies Malicious Use of AI in Cloud-Based Cyber Threats

    A recent report from OpenAI identifies the misuse of artificial intelligence in cybercrime, social engineering, and influence operations, particularly those targeting or operating through cloud infrastructure. In "Disrupting Malicious Uses of AI: June 2025," the company outlines how threat actors are weaponizing large language models for malicious ends — and how OpenAI is pushing back.

  • illustration of a human head with a glowing neural network in the brain, connected to tech icons on a cool blue-gray background

    Meta Introduces Stand-Alone AI App

    Meta Platforms has launched a stand-alone artificial intelligence app built on its proprietary Llama 4 model, intensifying the competitive race in generative AI alongside OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and xAI.

  • semi-transparent AI brain with circuit elements under a microscope

    AI 'Microscope' Reveals the Hidden Mechanics of LLM Thought

    Anthropic has introduced new research tools designed to provide a rare glimpse into the hidden reasoning processes of advanced language models — like a "microscope" for AI.