Google and Microsoft Compete with EDU Updates and Classroom Hits New...

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Google and Microsoft Compete with EDU Updates and Classroom Hits New Milestone

Aug 1, 2017

Five years since its introduction to the classroom, Google apps such as Gmail have taken over United States classrooms with more than half the nation’s K-12 students using its products (30 million students, the company told New York Times back in May.)

Today Google announced that its Classroom tool, after only being available for three years, has reached a new milestone—with over 1 billion student assignments submitted through the platform.

“We’ve seen educators do incredible things with G Suite for Education tools: creatively teach classroom material, collaborate with students, and design innovative assignments to achieve meaningful outcomes,” writes Sarah Wu, software engineer for Google Classroom, in a blog post.

The updates to Classroom will further ease the workload for educators in time for back-to-school, she writes. They include:

  1. A single view for students work that seems to allow teachers to monitor students progress individually.
  2. The ability for teachers to add student profiles on mobile phones, and for students to make edits to Classroom through their phones.
  3. Educators can integrate apps from Quizizz, Edcite, Kami and coming soon, Code.org.

Not to outdone by Google, today Microsoft also announced a slew of back to school tech sales for teachers. Notably, they are offering students an opportunity to flex pay for their new laptops.

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