Newsletter 
Google has announced some new features for the Google For Education program that will help teachers inspire students to learn in new ways and in new places, allowing for students to “take learning beyond the classroom.” Not only will this help teachers and students, but it’s also looking to benefit the parents as Google highlights new features that parents will be able to enjoy. The first of these which parents should be looking out for is the newly added ability to receive summaries on how their kids are doing in class. Parents or guardians of the children will need to first be invited by the teacher into the Google Classroom, after which they can receive summaries on student work progress. These alerts will also include upcoming announcements, and they can be set to arrive either weekly or daily via email automatically.
With automatic summaries coming through emails every day or once a week, parents will have a better grasp on what’s happening in their child’s educational life, and will have the opportunity to help them prepare for assignments or tests, or just be involved in upcoming events that may be happening at the school.
Another new addition to the Google Classroom is the ability for students to annotate documents. From inside the Google Classroom mobile app, students can do anything from showing work on a math problem to drawing up ideas and plans to better help them finish an assignment. Annotations are complete with various colors and pen tip sizes, as well as an eraser button to help undo mistakes or anything that’s drawn on screen. While students might typically have the ability to draw up notes and sketches in the actual classroom while they’re at school, they can more easily do the same thing while on the go using the app, alleviating any need to pull out a proper pen and paper. A new set of Expeditions has also been added to the application giving students even more places to explore using their smartphones and a compatible Cardboard viewer. Of course, Expeditions can be enjoyed without the Cardboard viewer too. These new Expeditions bring the total number of places to visit to over 200. Google highlights other features which teachers can take advantage of, such as a more organized classroom, updated Google Forms, and Inbox by Gmail for the classroom. These new tools should already be live for anyone who is using Google Classroom.
