Tag Archives: classroom

6 back-to-class tips for every educator

Whether you’re in Mexico preparing to start classes, or in Australia with your school year in full swing, going back to school can be exciting and overwhelming for students and teachers all over the world. We know that learning is not one size fits all - it is personal. To help amplify educators’ impact, we’ve created a new Back to School Guide to help educators meet each learner where they are – geographically, developmentally and academically.

Use new Classroom tools to support your students

Many educators are searching for new ways to help them create and deliver instruction efficiently, while supporting students effectively. With Google Workspace for Education and Google Classroom, you can set up classes to do everything from creating coursework to distributing assignments and grading. To get started, check out this Classroom training course.

We’ve added many new features to Classroom that we announced during our event, The Anywhere School 2022. For instance, integrated add-ons let you use your favorite education tools like Kahoot! and IXL right in Classroom. And, in partnership with Clever, admins can sync class rosters from most major student information systems (SISs) to Classroom. Schools with Education Plus can sign up for our beta pilot of Elevate Data Sync as we expand into 15 more countries.

YouTube video describing Classroom add ons
10:25

Inspire creativity through video

Distance learning taught us the value of being creative while teaching and learning, from using Google Meet to stay connected to taking students on virtual field trips to explore arts and culture.

A great way to inspire creativity is through video. Our new Screencast app, built into ChromeOS, helps students and teachers share their ideas in class by creating their own screencasts, with built-in transcription. Educators can also record, trim, transcribe and share recordings for their students to review anytime.

Another way to connect is by using the livestream feature in YouTube to share school events with your whole community, in addition to livestreams with Meet.

Those same tools present new ways to reengage students as schools return to in-person environments. Keep exploring ways to use tools like Jamboard, Forms, Sites, Docs, Slides and Sheets to better communicate with students and understand their needs.

Make lessons more personal with adaptive learning technology

Adaptive learning provides students with customized resources and activities to address their unique learning needs. For example, if a student struggles with adding fractions, a teacher might offer additional practice problems. By applying artificial intelligence to adaptive learning, we can explore new possibilities to make the learning experience more personal for each student.

A new Classroom feature called practice sets, globally available in beta, offers students a more personal path to learning. Now, educators can easily transform their own teaching content into interactive assignments and use the autograding tool to cut down on manual grading time. When working on assignments, students receive instant feedback on their answers, and real-time support if they get stuck along the way. Take this new tool for a spin and explore the possibilities.

YouTube video describing practice sets in Google Classroom
10:25

Help every student succeed with accessibility features

Many of the people behind Google for Education are former educators who bring their passion for inclusive learning to their work every day. So we know learners benefit greatly from tools that meet their unique needs.

Accessibility features built into Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks help students learn in the ways that work for them. Students can utilize visual aids, spoken feedback and Acapela text-to-speech voices on Chromebooks, or use voice typing, captioning, Braille displays, screen readers and magnifiers in Google Workspace for Education. ​​

Not yet familiar with our accessibility features? Take the Tools for Diverse Learners Training to help everyone participate and develop a love of learning.

Keep families involved and in the loop

One of the greatest predictors of student success is family engagement. Easily communicate with families using guardian email summaries in Classroom, schedule meetings with Calendar appointment slots and set up virtual conferences with Meet.

It’s also important to work alongside families to help students use technology responsibly and be critical consumers of digital content. You can share the Be Internet Awesome site, our Guardian’s Guides and the Google for Education Family Tech FAQ for back to school night to teach parents more about this topic. Students have Chromebooks at home? Families can use Family Link to help manage their child’s school account on a Chromebook.

YouTube video explaining Family Link on Chromebooks
10:25

Join the conversation with professional learning communities

Who better to learn from than other teachers? Join one of our Google Educators Groups, professional learning communities of educators from around the globe. Share teaching resources, discuss ideas and keep up with new technology developments. Boost your skills with our Teacher Center training courses and certifications – and be sure to sign up for the latest Google for Education updates.

Have a great, safe and healthy school year, no matter where in the year (or world) you are. And for more tips, be sure to explore our Back to School Guide.

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

We know that educators have go-to digital tools to make their lessons more engaging. But with that comes the challenges of managing multiple accounts and passwords, helping students navigate other websites, and handling grading on different platforms. Now, educators will be able to easily find, add, use and grade content from popular EdTech tools, right within Google Classroom. Add-ons provide a better end-to-end experience to not only save time for educators, but also simplify the digital classroom experience for students, too.

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

To make EdTech tools work better together, we partnered with 18 partners to offer add-ons for Classroom. You can do things like assign a trivia game from Kahoot!, browse content from IXL’s repository by subject or grade level, and make it easy for students to access interactive Pear Deck presentations, all within Classroom. With the content and activities of these educational partners accessible within Classroom, we hope it’s even easier to diversify your lessons and help students learn in new ways.

  • Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.

    With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.

  • Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)

    The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.

  • Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.

    With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

To start, we’ll have add-ons from Adobe Express for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12, Edpuzzle, Formative, Genially, Google Arts & Culture, Google Play Books, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela, PBS LearningMedia, Pear Deck, SAFARI Montage, Sora from OverDrive Education, WeVideo and Wordwall. If you don’t see a particular add-on within Classroom, email your admin to ask if your district can set up that add-on, or give feedback within Classroom to request new add-ons partners that aren’t on this list.

A grid of the logos of the new add-ons partners.

Simplify your grading workflows

To make grading easier for educators, many of the add-ons have integrated time-saving features like auto-grading, insights and grade syncing. Various add-ons also provide the opportunity to grade right within Classroom and include personalized feedback when sharing a grade back with students. All add-ons sync with the Classroom gradebook, too.

  • Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).

    The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.

  • Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)

    With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.

  • Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)

    Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

We know that educators have go-to digital tools to make their lessons more engaging. But with that comes the challenges of managing multiple accounts and passwords, helping students navigate other websites, and handling grading on different platforms. Now, educators will be able to easily find, add, use and grade content from popular EdTech tools, right within Google Classroom. Add-ons provide a better end-to-end experience to not only save time for educators, but also simplify the digital classroom experience for students, too.

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

To make EdTech tools work better together, we partnered with 18 partners to offer add-ons for Classroom. You can do things like assign a trivia game from Kahoot!, browse content from IXL’s repository by subject or grade level, and make it easy for students to access interactive Pear Deck presentations, all within Classroom. With the content and activities of these educational partners accessible within Classroom, we hope it’s even easier to diversify your lessons and help students learn in new ways.

  • Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.

    With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.

  • Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)

    The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.

  • Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.

    With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

To start, we’ll have add-ons from Adobe Express for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12, Edpuzzle, Formative, Genially, Google Arts & Culture, Google Play Books, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela, PBS LearningMedia, Pear Deck, SAFARI Montage, Sora from OverDrive Education, WeVideo and Wordwall. If you don’t see a particular add-on within Classroom, email your admin to ask if your district can set up that add-on, or give feedback within Classroom to request new add-ons partners that aren’t on this list.

A grid of the logos of the new add-ons partners.

Simplify your grading workflows

To make grading easier for educators, many of the add-ons have integrated time-saving features like auto-grading, insights and grade syncing. Various add-ons also provide the opportunity to grade right within Classroom and include personalized feedback when sharing a grade back with students. All add-ons sync with the Classroom gradebook, too.

  • Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).

    The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.

  • Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)

    With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.

  • Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)

    Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

We know that educators have go-to digital tools to make their lessons more engaging. But with that comes the challenges of managing multiple accounts and passwords, helping students navigate other websites, and handling grading on different platforms. Now, educators will be able to easily find, add, use and grade content from popular EdTech tools, right within Google Classroom. Add-ons provide a better end-to-end experience to not only save time for educators, but also simplify the digital classroom experience for students, too.

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

To make EdTech tools work better together, we partnered with 18 partners to offer add-ons for Classroom. You can do things like assign a trivia game from Kahoot!, browse content from IXL’s repository by subject or grade level, and make it easy for students to access interactive Pear Deck presentations, all within Classroom. With the content and activities of these educational partners accessible within Classroom, we hope it’s even easier to diversify your lessons and help students learn in new ways.

  • Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.

    With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.

  • Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)

    The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.

  • Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.

    With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

To start, we’ll have add-ons from Adobe Express for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12, Edpuzzle, Formative, Genially, Google Arts & Culture, Google Play Books, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela, PBS LearningMedia, Pear Deck, SAFARI Montage, Sora from OverDrive Education, WeVideo and Wordwall. If you don’t see a particular add-on within Classroom, email your admin to ask if your district can set up that add-on, or give feedback within Classroom to request new add-ons partners that aren’t on this list.

A grid of the logos of the new add-ons partners.

Simplify your grading workflows

To make grading easier for educators, many of the add-ons have integrated time-saving features like auto-grading, insights and grade syncing. Various add-ons also provide the opportunity to grade right within Classroom and include personalized feedback when sharing a grade back with students. All add-ons sync with the Classroom gradebook, too.

  • Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).

    The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.

  • Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)

    With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.

  • Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)

    Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

We know that educators have go-to digital tools to make their lessons more engaging. But with that comes the challenges of managing multiple accounts and passwords, helping students navigate other websites, and handling grading on different platforms. Now, educators will be able to easily find, add, use and grade content from popular EdTech tools, right within Google Classroom. Add-ons provide a better end-to-end experience to not only save time for educators, but also simplify the digital classroom experience for students, too.

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

To make EdTech tools work better together, we partnered with 18 partners to offer add-ons for Classroom. You can do things like assign a trivia game from Kahoot!, browse content from IXL’s repository by subject or grade level, and make it easy for students to access interactive Pear Deck presentations, all within Classroom. With the content and activities of these educational partners accessible within Classroom, we hope it’s even easier to diversify your lessons and help students learn in new ways.

  • Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.

    With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.

  • Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)

    The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.

  • Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.

    With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

To start, we’ll have add-ons from Adobe Express for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12, Edpuzzle, Formative, Genially, Google Arts & Culture, Google Play Books, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela, PBS LearningMedia, Pear Deck, SAFARI Montage, Sora from OverDrive Education, WeVideo and Wordwall. If you don’t see a particular add-on within Classroom, email your admin to ask if your district can set up that add-on, or give feedback within Classroom to request new add-ons partners that aren’t on this list.

A grid of the logos of the new add-ons partners.

Simplify your grading workflows

To make grading easier for educators, many of the add-ons have integrated time-saving features like auto-grading, insights and grade syncing. Various add-ons also provide the opportunity to grade right within Classroom and include personalized feedback when sharing a grade back with students. All add-ons sync with the Classroom gradebook, too.

  • Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).

    The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.

  • Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)

    With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.

  • Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)

    Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.

Use your favorite education tools in Classroom with add-ons

We know that educators have go-to digital tools to make their lessons more engaging. But with that comes the challenges of managing multiple accounts and passwords, helping students navigate other websites, and handling grading on different platforms. Now, educators will be able to easily find, add, use and grade content from popular EdTech tools, right within Google Classroom. Add-ons provide a better end-to-end experience to not only save time for educators, but also simplify the digital classroom experience for students, too.

Use popular education tools, right within Classroom

To make EdTech tools work better together, we partnered with 18 partners to offer add-ons for Classroom. You can do things like assign a trivia game from Kahoot!, browse content from IXL’s repository by subject or grade level, and make it easy for students to access interactive Pear Deck presentations, all within Classroom. With the content and activities of these educational partners accessible within Classroom, we hope it’s even easier to diversify your lessons and help students learn in new ways.

  • Animation showing that students can find a Pear Deck presentation from within Classroom, interact with it, then turn it in.

    With just a few clicks, students can access, and turn in, interactive Pear Deck presentations from within Classroom.

  • Animation showing that an educator can use add-ons to create an assignment, browse skills in the IXL add-on by subject or grade level, then add it to an assignment within Classroom.)

    The IXL add-on allows you to browse IXL skills by subject or grade level before adding it to a Classroom Assignment or Stream, and even assign skills to a specific student.

  • Animation showing that teachers can search for kahoots that they have made or save, all within Classroom.

    With the Kahoot! add-on, teachers can access kahoots they made or saved, and make them easy for students to use, all without leaving Classroom.

To start, we’ll have add-ons from Adobe Express for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12, Edpuzzle, Formative, Genially, Google Arts & Culture, Google Play Books, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela, PBS LearningMedia, Pear Deck, SAFARI Montage, Sora from OverDrive Education, WeVideo and Wordwall. If you don’t see a particular add-on within Classroom, email your admin to ask if your district can set up that add-on, or give feedback within Classroom to request new add-ons partners that aren’t on this list.

A grid of the logos of the new add-ons partners.

Simplify your grading workflows

To make grading easier for educators, many of the add-ons have integrated time-saving features like auto-grading, insights and grade syncing. Various add-ons also provide the opportunity to grade right within Classroom and include personalized feedback when sharing a grade back with students. All add-ons sync with the Classroom gradebook, too.

  • Animation showing the CK-12 add-on and how it enables teachers to view insights and actionable recommendations related to students).

    The CK-12 add-on lets you create interactive assignments, track class performance across assignments, see auto-graded results and view insights that show concept-level performance patterns and actionable recommendations for each student.

  • Animation depicting the Nearpod add-on and how educators can see how much students participated in a lesson and how well they scored on assignments.)

    With the Nearpod add-on, teachers can assign lessons to their class or individual students, review reports of student engagement and activity, and record grades directly within Google Classroom.

  • Animation of the Edpuzzle add-on and how a quiz can be auto-graded because it uses multiple choice questions.)

    Edpuzzle makes it easy to find or create video lessons, measure progress with real-time information on student engagement and comprehension and save time with auto-grading for certain question types.

Google Classroom: Making your favorite educational tools work better together

Editor’s Note: Join us for Google for Education’s product launch event, The Anywhere School 2022, to find out about the latest features to help students pursue their personal potential.

For educators, there are always a few top of mind questions: how can they optimize their time and find ways to help each student learn effectively? With Classroom, we’re working to help solve these problems so educators can focus more on teaching and students can experience new approaches to make learning more personal.

We’re announcing new features to help tackle complex challenges, like supporting individualized learning at scale. We’re also developing deeper integrations with key tools that educators and administrators use on a day-to-day basis, making everyday tasks, like grading, creating assignments, and managing class lists easier.

Practice makes progress

Built with adaptive learning technology, practice sets is a new feature in Google Classroom that enables teachers to transform their existing content into interactive assignments. When working on an assignment, students receive instant feedback on their answers, and real-time support through visual explainers and videos if they get stuck along the way. For teachers, once they set up their initial questions, practice sets provide automated grading and insights to help them quickly identify gaps in students’ understanding so they can shape future lessons. Practice sets will be globally available in beta, and in English only, for Google Workspace for Education customers with Education Plus or the Teaching and Learning Upgrade. If you’re interested in trying out the beta, express interest here.

Video of digital illustrations showcasing the new adaptive learning feature called practice sets
10:25

Create interactive lessons and simplify grading with your favorite EdTech tools (coming soon)

With Classroom add-ons, teachers and students can soon access custom learning and grading experiences from more than 15 EdTech favorites including IXL, Pear Deck, Kahoot! and Nearpod. They can sign into Classroom and each add-on with the same login, removing the need to remember multiple passwords or to navigate to multiple websites to access classwork. Teachers can more easily review student work with the Classroom grader view and grades will automatically transfer to the Classroom gradebook.

In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out this feature to Classroom users with Google for Education Plus or the Teaching and Learning Upgrade. Admins will be able to choose which add-ons they enable for their schools. Subscribe to the Google for Education newsletter to get notified when this feature is available.

With the IXL add-on, browse content by skill level or subject, then preview the skill before attaching to an assignment.

Set up classes automatically with expanded SIS syncing

Last year, in partnership with Clever, we added the ability to sync the rosters from your student information system (SIS) to Classroom, so classes could be automatically created and updated. Soon, we’ll be expanding to 15 more countries with the help of SIS integration expert, Elevate Data Sync. Admins can sync class lists and timetables directly with most major student information systems, removing the need for teachers to set up their courses manually. Now, they can just click “accept” when their course is created. Schools with Education Plus that are interested in trying this out with Elevate Data Sync can sign up for the beta today.

Animation showing student rosters syncing and updating.

Admins can sync class lists directly with most major student information systems. Teachers can just click “accept” when their course is created

Prioritizing your top requests

We spend a lot of time with teachers and schools to make sure we’re developing new features and products that help with what they need most. We read every piece of feedback that is shared, anduse that information to prioritize top feature requests. Here are some of the latest improvements:

  • YouTube in Google Classroom: It’s now easier to find, evaluate, and add YouTube videos into your lessons from Classroom with larger thumbnail images and the ability to filter videos by duration. And when you or your students are watching a video, you’ll see a larger video player.
  • Grade export: We’ve added action-oriented messages that guide teachers as they sync grades with their SIS.
  • Notifications: Our notification emails are getting a refresh, so teachers and students can quickly scan emails and find key information. Later this year, teachers will even be able to reply to students from within their email notifications in Gmail. And for those of you who access Google Classroom on your mobile device, we're adding email settings functionality – so that everyone can now tailor notification settings for both email and push notifications.
Animation showing a teacher responding to a student’s comment, right from within Gmail.

Reply to students' comments, right from within Gmail.

In interviews with dozens of education leaders, we’ve heard three main themes: You need better visibility, deeper insights, and ways to support teachers at scale. We’re working on several new features, built specifically for education leaders, that will address these needs. Stay tuned for the chance to join our alpha and beta pilots, and expect lots more updates about how we’re empowering education leaders to achieve their goals and drive instructional impact.

We know that training helps build confidence when using new tools in the Classroom. Whether you’re just starting out or exploring advanced features, we have three new video-based trainings covering features that help simplify class management and accelerate grading, and lessons for students too. You can easily find all of these new lessons (available in English), and more training and instructional resources, on the Applied Digital Skills website (available now) or the Teacher Center (available later this month).

Ready to shape the future of our products? Sign up for our Google for Education Pilot Program, which is available globally.