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G-Suites Update Slides Presentation 5/5/21

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G-Suites Update Slides Presentation 5/5/21

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Please help improve this workshop by providing feedback!

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Using Family Link with a school account on a Chromebook

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12 New Features Coming to Google Classroom in 2021

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12 New Features Coming to Google Classroom in 2021

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Recently, Google's educational products, Classroom, Meet, and Chrome, have welcomed 50 new features to improve its 150 million students' and educators' learning experience.

Let's take a look at some of Google Classroom's most notable new features and changes coming in 2021.

What is Google Classroom?

Google Classroom is the first choice in learning management systems for many educational leaders. The usage of educational platforms has risen during the pandemic. A lot of people have been taking classes online and through other means across the globe.

Google Classroom aims to connect students and educators through a simple teaching and learning experience. Its new features stem from its users' feedback, who have provided details about their changing needs to the product.

This year, Google Classroom will include updates to the user interface and improve workflows for educators. Remote learning will also become easier for students with Classroom.

1. Classroom to Work with Tools

Google Classroom will integrate external tools and content in the education sector. This integration will simplify the use of various tools.

With this, you'll be able to choose the tools and content suited to your needs from the marketplace and assign them to students directly from Classroom.

Teachers using Google Workspace for Education Plus or the Teaching & Learning Upgrade will have access to add-on tools. Moreover, the login process will simplify, and admins can install add-ons for teachers in their domain.

2. Classroom Add-on Integrations

Education Plus users will be able to set up classes in advance, with rosters synched from Classroom with their Student Information System (SIS). This will improve the learning experience by supporting teachers using apps in their classrooms.

3. Marks Made Easy

Google Classroom will streamline grading with Grade Export. Educators can track marks and share them from Classroom's Gradebook to their SIS, which facilitates recording marks.

4. Audit Logs for Admins

Audit logs will track events to simplify the process of sorting out any Classroom-related issues. This information will be available directly to the admins, who can view the date when that content was archived or movements between students were made.

5. Insights for Activity Logs

Education Standard and Education Plus admin users will derive insights relating to Google Classroom adoption and engagement. They will be able to customize the data templates to improve data visualization and export the audit logs.

6. Improved Hybridity

Google Classroom will improve the learning environment with the ability to track student engagement. These stats provide educators perspective on how students are doing in relation to specific student interactions within Classroom.

7. Offline Learning

The Android app will soon cater to offline or intermittent connections, allowing students to begin, review, open, and write assignments in Google Docs without needing an internet connection.

Related: What Are Online Learning Platforms and How Has the Pandemic Shaped Them?

8. Improved Imagery

As more photos are shared in Classroom, it will soon be easier to attach and submit them for the educators' review.

Students will be able to combine photos into a single document and edit the image's size, rotation, and lighting. The Android app will allow for the scanning, editing, and attachment of images as well.

9. Simplified Workflows

Educators will be privy to simplified workflows with improved mobile usage of Classroom. This will include switching between and being able to view, complete grading, and provide feedback through the mobile app.

10. Rich Text Formatting

Using Google Classroom, teachers and students will be able to add rich text formatting to their assignments and posts, like bold, italics, underline, and bullet points.

11. Originality Reports

Originality report functionality that detects plagiarism will span new languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Italian, Indonesian, Japanese, Finnish, German, Korean, Danish, Malay, and Hindi.

12. CS First Integration

Google Classroom's features include CS First integration, a completely free computer science curriculum. Students can sign in using a Google account, and educators can import their student rosters directly from Classroom to get started.

Download: Google Classroom for iOS | Android

Classroom's New Features

The features introduced are all designed to improve the ongoing use of Google Classroom as a primary learning environment. The updates expected in 2021 will enhance the experience for both teachers and students. Moreover, users are encouraged to continue to share their feedback for future feature additions.

Google Updates the Look and Feel of Meet Mobile Apps

Users of Google Meet are going to notice a very familiar interface on Android and iOS.

About The Author

Shannon Correia (15 Articles Published)

More From Shannon Correia

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12 New Features Coming to Google Classroom in 2021

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Recently, Google's educational products, Classroom, Meet, and Chrome, have welcomed 50 new features to improve its 150 million students' and educators' learning experience. Let's take a look at some of Google Classroom's most notable new features and changes coming in 2021. Google Classroom is the first choice in learning management systems for many educational leaders.

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Google Page Experience Update Is Not Launching In May 2021

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Google Page Experience Update Is Not Launching In May 2021

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Google is now postponing the Google Page Experience Update. Google announced it is moving it from launching next month to launching between mid-June and the end of August. Some small items are launching now, some are rolling out in mid-June and the rest will take through the end of August to rollout. Here is what is changing and when.

Live Today:

Mid-June:

Google Page Experience Update ranking changes begins to rollout slowly and gradually (note, it won't finish rolling out until the end of August)

AMP is no longer a requirement for eligibility for the Top Stories Carousel; again, this starts in mid-June but won't be fully live until the end of August

AMP icon/label should go away here I believe

Google will continue to test a page experience / core web vitals label but no decision has been made on if it will stick or not

End of August:

Google Page Experience Update ranking update will be fully live

AMP is no longer a requirement for eligibility for the Top Stories Carousel will be fully live

Why the change? Google said it "hopes that this adjusted roll-out schedule will help you continue to make refinements to your website with page experience in mind."

Is there some big conspiracy thing going on? John said it is normal big company issues:

It's not uncommon for timelines to be adjusted & pushed back a bit - often more than one thing comes together. At big companies, a lot of things come together, both from internally & externally. #NoConspiracy
- 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) April 19, 2021

Google doubled down on that this won't be a huge change, Google said "as we have said before, while this update is designed to highlight pages that offer great user experiences, page experience remains one of many factors our systems take into account. Given this, sites generally should not expect drastic changes. In addition, because we're doing this as a gradual rollout, we will be able to monitor for any unexpected or unintended issues."

The signed exchanges thing is where Google can support publishers real URLs instead of the AMP cache URL. Google did add "The use of SXG is not a requirement for page experience benefits, and you can consider the technology as one of the options for improving your page experience."

Also, just a reminder, you do not need to meet the core web vitals to be in top stories and those also do not need to be AMP. Google said "the Top Stories carousel feature on Google Search will be updated to include all news content, as long as it meets the Google News content policies.

Here is a nifty chart that Google came out with to explain what is part of this Google Page Experience update:

So we got more time to deal with this, plus new reports, which I wrote about over here.

Here is a poll from Izzi Smith asking the industry if they are relieved or eager - as with all SEO polls, the results are mixed.

Google just postponed the Page Experience Update from May to mid-June (and it will be a very gradual rollout). Are you a bit relieved or just eager to get it over and done with now?
- Izzi Smith (@izzionfire) April 19, 2021

Sorry if you all rushed to get ready for it, but it doesn't really hurt either way, right?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

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Google Page Experience Update Is Not Launching In May 2021

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Google is now postponing the Google Page Experience Update - moving it from launching next month to launching between mid-June and the end of August. Some small items are launching now, some are rolling out in mid-June and the rest will take through the end of August to rollout.