Learning Management Systems

SIS/LMS Firm Augments Integration with Google Classroom

• By Dian Schaffhauser
• 06/28/16

An education technology company that supplements Google's toolset for teachers and students has expanded its integration with the larger company's school software. Alma Technologies' cloud-based Alma blends features of learning management systems (LMSs) and student information systems (SISs) to deliver functionality for administration, instructional management, communication and reporting.

Last year the company released an application programming interface that lets schools set up Google Classrooms with one click, using data pulled from Alma's database. Now, teachers can also shuttle assignment and grade details between Google's Classroom and the Alma application. From there, they can manage their gradebooks, create report cards and communicate with parents. The same data can be used by school leaders for reporting and analytics. Families can peer into their students' grades, homework assignments, online discussions, teacher notes, calendar items and other school information. In all cases, users can access both programs with one sign-on.

One district user likened the combination to a "one-stop shop." "Like many schools, our district has embraced the Google Apps for Education ecosystem. Our teachers use Classroom extensively from the primary grades all the way up through high school. Alma enables us to provide our learners and our teachers with the equivalent of one-stop shopping in this tight integration with the Classroom application," said John Martin, director for innovation and technology for the Inter-Lakes School District in Meredith, NH, in a press release. "The beauty of automatic enrollment means that more of my teachers can focus on the educational aspects of their work rather than the administrative chores of enrollment management and transcribing grades into a student information system."