Google classroom online tool is designed to helps teachers and students. It was unveiled in May 2014.
The project’s pilot phase has been completed making the tool open for all apps that education users require.
This tool integrates Gmail, Google Docs and Google Drive. Teachers
can, thus, use this service to give assignments and to collect the work
online. It is excellent in boosting communication between the teacher
and his or her students. It is especially effective in communicating
when outside the classroom.
This app is available through Google Education Apps suite. Using it,
educators can issue assignments, collect the assignment, view the
students who have not completed their work and make announcements to the
students. The performance of each student can be tracked easily since
separate drive folders can be created by the teacher for every student.
Students too can post a stream of contents to link up with classmates.
Privacy has been achieved by making Google classroom free of ads. The data is also not used for marketing.
The pilot program sponsored by Google, involved schools and
universities from over 45 different countries and over 100,000
educators. The project was aimed at creating a tool that would allow
educators spend less time shuffling through papers so that they can have
more teaching time at their disposal.
Using the feedback gathered from educators who had tested the tool
during the preview stages, several useful modifications were made. The
modifications include an ‘About’ page where teachers can post info,
data, statistics and materials about their class.
The tool comes in 42 different languages and is compatible with
mobile devices as well. The tool is offered freely and allows for easy
production of digital worksheets and assignments since all an educator
has to do is to create assignments or attach files using Google drive
and then automatically make each student a copy.
Though the technology may take a while before it is embraced in
Nigeria and Africa in general, it definitely makes teaching and
communication easier. It will, thus, be beneficial to users that embrace
it.
