Google Classroom is getting a major update that will add a number of neat features, and it will also make it harder to cheat on quizzes.
As the annual ISTE education conference takes place this week, Google took advantage of the opportunity and announced its upcoming Classroom features that should significantly improve the whole experience.
For those unfamiliar with the product, Google launched Classroom back in 2014 as a platform for teachers to more easily assign tasks to students, and improve the development of coursework. Google Classroom saw more than 1 billion assignments submitted last summer, and Google continues to improve the platform with several new features.
Google Classroom Update
On Monday, June 25, Google announced what it plans to add to Classroom later this year, and the new features will make things easier for both teachers and parents who want more control over their kids' devices and online time.
For instance, teachers and parents will be able to prevent kids from accessing their device's browser and apps when they should be doing something else, like studying or sleeping.
Classwork Section
Google Classroom has a section with chronological posts where one can find the questions, assignments, and other activities that have been posted. However, as the number of posts increased, it got harder to find something because it required a lot of scrolling.
To make things easier, Google has now introduced a new Classwork section that organizes posts by units and modules. This not only makes it easier for teachers to plan their coursework by unit, semester, or other criteria, it also makes it easier for students to find what they're looking for in an easier and faster manner.
Moreover, the assignments in the stream of posts are also getting a new compact view that makes discussions and questions stand out.
"Teachers will be able to create and manage assignments and questions from the Classwork page," Google explains. "This gives class content its own space in Classroom, and allows the Stream to be used for class conversation."
At the same time, a new People page will make it easier for teachers to manage students, guardians, and co-teachers.
Creating Quizzes From Classroom
With the new update, teachers will also get a cool new option: creating and assigning a Google Forms Quiz straight from Classroom, which should save them both time and energy.
With Quizzes, teachers can create questions and easily grade them with a number of options. They can also add feedback to the answers so that the students learn more, and import grades easily into Classroom.
When assigning quizzes in Google Forms, teachers can also prevent student from accessing anything else other than the assignment, thus keeping them from browsing the web or looking for answers elsewhere on the computer. This could make it harder for students to cheat.
