Have you seen the recent changes to Google Classroom?




Google truly has schools in mind and are constantly making improvements to their line of apps.  Most of the improvements are made by direct feedback from teachers (like myself) who are asking for more functionality from the app. 


I love Google Apps for Education.  I use the entire suite daily and am constantly learning new ways that I can use them and more addons that improve their use.  When I come across an issue where I wish an app would function in a certain way and I can't find a work around, I hit up Google through their feedback icon on each GAFE.  It appears as a question mark at the lower right or left of GAFE pages



When you click on this icon, it brings up a panel to offer feedback or to ask questions .


I use this feature constantly.  As a major user of the suite of Apps I expect a certain functionality.  We all have had the thought, "I wish that this worked liked this other thing that I use."  That thought does no one any good if you keep it in your head.  If you let Google know what you need, they truly will make efforts to improve the functionality of their programs to suit the users needs.

As a former EdModo user, there were functions that I missed when I made the switch to Google Classroom.  I let Google know about it-sometimes more than once.  on Tuesday afternoon, I got word that my suggestions were hear.  Google sent me an email to let me know that the suggestions I made had been addressed.  Sitting in Missy Townsend's office with Kelli Bradstreet, I squealed with delight as these changes are pretty major. 

Some of the newest improvements to Google Classroom include:

  • the ability to reorder posts in the Classroom stream by "bumping" a post to the top.
  • the ability to reuse an older post for assignments that are repeated weekly or daily
  • the ability to ask a question to the class for a quick check for understanding or even a warm up.  Teachers can see who has responded and can give students the option to see and respond to each others answers or to keep the responses private.

    These updates are exciting and quite promising.  As more and more users are embracing Google Classroom, Google is making efforts to ensure its users are satisfied with the functionaity of this increasingly powerful Learning Management System.

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