Google Classroom is being updated with some new feature today and ones which are designed to cater to just about every way you can engage with Classroom. As part of the announcement, Google has confirmed that from the student point of view, Classroom has been updated with individualized work improvements. While teachers are gaining improved notifications, administrators will be able to make use of new metrics, and and there will be a greater number of coursework integrations for developers. Improvements which Google notes are right in line with everyone returning back to school following the Holiday break.
Starting with the student-focused improvements and Classroom now comes with an improved ability for teachers to assign work which is better-suited to individual student needs. Teachers will be able to assign (and even answer questions) at the individual student level, as well as the group (or sub-group) level. Which means that students will be able to benefit from assignments, answers and posts which are more curated for them individually. At the teacher level, the new improvements focus on notifications and in particular, a greater number of specific notifications. In the announcement, Google highlights teachers can now receive specific notifications for when work is submitted after a due date or when work is being re-submitted. An approach which is designed to better help teachers keep on top of their notifications and their work load, in general.
Moving to the more behind the scenes improvements and administrators will be able to access Classroom data directly from the Admin Console Reports. This will effectively provide administrators with a greater degree of information on Classroom usage in general. Which in turn, is designed to help administrators gain insight into how the service is being used and where it can be improved on in the future. While at the developer level, Google has announced that the Classroom API has now gained new capabilities, thanks to a number of new integrations which should help developers to provide a “more seamless” Classroom experience for its users. The updates are said to be rolling out to both the web-based and app-based versions of Classroom and you can see some examples of the new functionality on offer below.