
Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication - emadkhan
http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/06/google-debuts-classroom-an-education-platform-for-teacher-student-communication/?ncid=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29
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cm2012
Like 95% of Google side projects, they will barely support this and it will
slowly languish until killed.

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TillE
I feel like I'm watching this happen in slow motion with Google Keep. I've
been using it since its release for transient stuff like shopping lists,
mostly because it has a nice Android lock screen widget.

It's over a year old now, and it's only received very minor updates. Still
can't even reorder notes in the web interface. I won't be devastated if/when
it goes away, but it just seems like a huge missed opportunity for Google to
actually put some effort into this kind of application.

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wutbrodo
> It's over a year old now, and it's only received very minor updates.

wat. There was a major update less than a month ago, adding:

-Searchable images: Find printed text in images

-List settings: Set where new or checked items go

-Trash: Keep deleted notes just a little longer

-Yellow action bar

-Updated slide-out menu with multi-account selection

-Make copies of notes

-Action bar changes color with notes

A few months before that was:

-Sleek new design: many of your favorite things from the -Android app are now on the web – full color notes, text that scales to fit the note, and a custom font just for Keep

-Rearrange items in lists: keep everything in order, all the time

-Improved search: finding the note you’re looking for is easier than ever

-Navigation drawer: quickly switch between your active and archived notes, or get a custom view of all of your notes with reminders

(Apologies for the editorializing, I literally just searched for articles
about Keep updates and copied the changelogs over)

> Still can't even reorder notes in the web interface.

I just opened up the Keep web app and clicking and dragging works fine for me
to re-order notes.

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protomyth
So, how are the student accounts handled and can I call someone when we have a
problem?

[if the answer is G+ account, I don't think I can risk it given Google hate
for certain types of names]

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wehadfun
Direct link
[http://www.google.com/edu/classroom/](http://www.google.com/edu/classroom/)

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joezydeco
I need to show this video to some teachers I know, just so I can count how
many turn white seeing a room full of kids using laptops with the screens
turned away from the teacher's view.

I'm guessing this will be a non-zero value.

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kinayru
<<A response from someone who works in education.>>

This actually is a HUGE deal for teachers and schools, and it will provide a
LOT of value.

One of the largest frustrations teachers have with going paperless is managing
the workflow of assignments. Learning management systems like Blackboard or
Moodle were often a feasible solution to this issue, since teachers could
share files for download and students could upload finished assignments.

Google Apps for Education products (namely Google Docs) disrupted this.
Because Google Docs allows teachers to have access to student work
(collaborative editing), it allows him/her to give feedback and support
throughout the entire creative process.

That's a very big deal, and it makes the [upload/download] features in
Blackboard or Moodle less useful. Plugins that allowed access to Google Drive
folders were built for both of those tools (as well as others- like Schoology,
Edmodo, Haiku, Canvas, etc.) but they stopped short when it came to managing
the workflow of creating, sharing, organizing, and collecting collaborative
files in the Google Apps ecosystem.

In 2011, Hapara [ed tech company, graduated iK12 accelerator,
[http://hapara.com/](http://hapara.com/)] entered the scene. Their tool laid
on top of Google Apps products and streamlined the process of managing
classrooms by giving teachers or administrators a bird's eye view of all
student work- their files, recent activity, etc. That workflow problem was
solved.

However, not every school is willing to pay for the advanced features of
Hapara- so there still wasn't a free solution that every teacher could access.
Some of the team at the NY-based school charter network New Visions for Public
Schools built and released some of the scripts they were using to manage
processes [[http://youpd.org](http://youpd.org)]. Some of the more popular
scripts included 'Doctopus' [to manage assignment creation/collecting] and
'Flubaroo' [to automate the grading of quizzes created in Google Forms].

Again, the workflow issue was solved. However, a lot of teachers weren't tech-
saavy enough (yet!) to utilize all of these scripts of piece-meal all of them
together to build a comprehensive solution.

So yes, this is a huge deal, because it allows teachers to easily manage the
tools they are already using (and they are definitely using GAFE products-
literally tens of millions of students and teachers have access to those
tools).

Also, as an aside-- I've noticed comments that say, "teachers do not want to
create assignments" or "teachers would go white seeing a room full of kids
with their laptops turned away". Please do not assume that most teachers are
resistant to learning how to use digital tools. Schools are dealing with a
variety of issues related to this shift, including weak infrastructure, broken
and outdated equipment, lack of time for training, lack of a shared vision and
implementation planning, lack of support, negative media coverage, etc. If any
teacher is resistant, it is likely because he/she hasn't had enough support to
adapt in a meaningful way yet. This is a BIG change for teachers and it
completely changes the fundamentals of how many of them have operated. Think
about the last time we went through a shift this dramatic... the closest thing
to what the Internet has done for education is probably what the printing
press did for education. That's a big deal, and there are going to be growing
pains.

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jpace121
It's going to be interesting to watch how this competes with Blackboard.

Anecdotally, it definitely looks like Blackboard has an almost monopoly on
class room management stuff. Since the education market is so slow to adopt
new things, Google definitely has their work cut out for them.

With that being said, Blackboard definitely leaves a lot to be desired, and
with classes supposedly going online more and more, the market is definitely
ripe for some disruption.

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extra88
"Blackboard's market share among universities slipped to about 45 percent last
year, down 26 points from six years before." And I question whether their
share was really that high or just that high amongst universities that
purchased a commercial LMS (as opposed to having a home-grown one, free & open
source one, or no school-wide LMS at all).

[http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/techflash/2013/09...](http://www.bizjournals.com/washington/blog/techflash/2013/09/blackboard-
layoffs.html?page=all)

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chestnut-tree
These tools and services look very promising but Google needs to be clear and
transparent about what data it captures when rolling out this service.

Is it tracking and recording the usage and behaviour of teachers and students
who use these tools? What does it use this data for? ("we use this data to
improve services" says absolutely nothing.)

If you start using these tools in your student years, then continue to use
your email and Google apps into adult life, can you imagine the _phenomenal_
amount of data Google will have captured and recorded about you?

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MattHeard
From the article:

> Google also won’t even use the data that moves through the platform or
> display ads in Classroom, either, in accordance with its new policy
> announced last week.

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adrianlmm
How can we be sure about that?

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prezjordan
I mean, I guess you can't unless you can a) see the source code yourself and
b) deploy it yourself.

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adrianlmm
They say they don't collect information for advertising purposes, that doesn't
mean they don't collect the information for tracking purposes, it just a game
of words they have there in the privacy statement.

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lallysingh
Of they're not tracking for advertisement purposes, what would they be
tracking for?

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salemh
Not to mention the potential damage that could be done to Canvas by
Instructure, which is competing with the Black Board behemoth at the
(currently) higher ed market.

[http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/instructure](http://www.crunchbase.com/organization/instructure)
$39.10M funding / 2008 startup.

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justin66
Anything that hurts Blackboard can't be ALL bad.

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wehadfun
"to help teachers create and organize assignments"

Teachers do not want to create assignments. I created a similar thing for my
wife and discovered this and a lot more

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koof
Maybe it was how you implemented it? That's also a sample size of one.

