Mobile App Now Available for Google Classroom
Google is introducing a mobile app that will allow
teachers,
students and administrators to access its Classroom learning management system
(LMS) anywhere and at any time. At the same time, Google is introducing
two new
features to Classroom for desktops intended to help teachers with their
work.
The new Classroom app, available for both iPhone and
Android,
will have several new features.
For one, students will be able to use their
smartphones to
take photos that can then be attached to assignments they are working
on. For
instance, they can visually document a science experiment they're
conducting or
a drawing or painting they have completed for an art class assignment.
They can attach images, PDFs and Web pages from other
apps to
their assignments. If a student is using an unrelated drawing app to
create a
graphic, when he or she clicks on "share" in that app, Classroom will
come up
as an option and the graphic can be attached to the assignment.
Because class streams and assignment information will
be
automatically cached every time the app is opened with an Internet
connection,
students don't have to worry about being able to access information when
they
are in a location where they do not have an Internet connection.
Google representatives suggested that, for the best
experience,
anybody downloading the Classroom app should also have the apps for
Google Docs, Drive and Slides.
As for the new Classroom features for teachers, there
is a new
teacher assignments page that will give them quick access to any
assignment,
track which ones have been reviewed and which students have and have not
completed the assignments.
Teachers will also now have the ability to archive
past
classes, offering more convenient access to information from previous
classes.
An archived class will be removed from the current home page and
available as
read-only, meaning teachers and students can view the archived content
but not
make changes to assignments.
The Classroom LMS, launched only six months ago, is
already
being used by way of desktop by 40 million teachers, students and
administrators, and students all over the world have turned in 30
million
assignments so far.
About the Author
Michael Hart is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and the former executive editor of THE Journal.