Google’s suite of education tools, called Google For Education, centers around Google Classroom, a hub of sorts that teachers can run live during class in an interactive manner to engage students and change up the lesson plan in real time as needed. Along with the suite of interactive tools, teachers would normally have to incorporate traditional classroom elements such as oral questions and pop quizzes to check understanding, gauge interest and help with planning, which could make some students nervous or alienate remote students. Starting with an update on Thursday, however, teachers will be able to issue customized polls to all students or to individual students, allowing for easier individualized teaching and more adaptive curriculum.
On the blog post showing off the new update, Google shows teachers four examples of possible uses for the flexible new surveying system. In a rather simple poll, a teacher asks a question about the curriculum to ensure the class is “getting it” and figure out who may need some more help. Another teacher offers a multiple choice poll, complete with live stats, to show who’s on track for a class project. A third example, shown above, shows the live teacher’s console with student results, showing that a due date can be set and the teacher can choose whether the students get to see the results in real time. A fourth example is shown, in which a teacher gauges interest and figures out the best material to use by asking students about their favorite part of a unit they’ve just covered in the curriculum.
Along with this update, Google updated the Android and iOS apps with the functionality, allowing educators to proctor polls and view results from their smartphone, as well as receive notifications about activities on the Google Classroom suite. Posts of any sort can also be set up, monitored, changed and even taken down. On the Android version, teachers are able to handle multiple classes through the app, making life easier for teachers with multiple periods or who teach multiple subjects. Since posts from one class can be reused in another class or again in the same class, teachers can copy posts across classrooms or issue an end of class quiz with the same content as the pretest. Head through the source link to check out the full changelog on the Google For Education blog.