Google Classroom comes bundled with G Suite for
Education, for schools that already subscribe. Educators
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Schoology and Edmodo, both of which can be used by
individual instructors or scaled by administrators to
support entire school districts. Although Google
Classroom is remarkably easy to use, it has limitations:
For example, it lacks Edmodo’s educational marketplace.
GOOGLE CLASSROOM BASICS
Perhaps the most important point to make about Google
Classroom is that it’s designed to support—not replace—
in-person classes. If your institution supports
Blackboard Learn or another full-service LMS, you’re
probably already using that as a tool that integrates
tightly with your entire learning experience, whether
you’re the instructor creating lesson plans and keeping
track of student work or the learner following a syllabus
and turning in course work.
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who opt into Google Classroom do so because of its
simplicity. You don’t need an IT department to use it,
and you can use it only to the extent that it improves
your in-person classes. That’s a large part of the appeal.
Although the app works with G Suite for Education,
anyone with a Google account can use it. You can invite
students using any email address they have, not just
Gmail. For these reasons, Google Classroom works well
as a system for sharing materials, encouraging online
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school system. It doesn’t matter if you teach a cooking
class or run your own dog-walking business and want to
train new employees. You can use Google Classroom in a
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with learners, and so forth.
One important
point to make
about Google
Classroom is
that it’s
designed to
support—not
replace—in-
person classes.