Google Reveals Classroom, A Tool That Lets Teachers Collect Assignments Online. Being a teacher doesn't end when the kids go home.
After 3 p.m. you still have to develop the curriculum, grade assignments, and more. This week, though, Google introduced a suite of education tools that aims to make it easier for teachers to collect homework as part of its Apps for Education initiative. It is called Google Classroom. Now, it should be noted that Google is hardly the first software company to take a crack at removing paper from the messy logistical nightmare of collecting and grading homework. But unlike similar ed-tech platforms like Blackboard--which saw its command of the university market slip below 45% last year, purportedly leading to a round of layoffs--or fresh entrants like Moodle (which is quickly growing in popularity, even surpassing Blackboard in small colleges), Google's main advantage might be that it is working with online tools educators may already be familiar with.
If interested, you can sign up for Classroom over here. Google+ is What Internet Forums Should Have Been. For a long time I’ve wondered what Google+ is meant to be used for.
It’s a pleasant experience, removing much of the clutter and distractions that irritate me over on Facebook. The site also has a terrific ability to display high quality photographs, as well as customize exactly who gets to see specific types of content that you’re posting. Before, I struggled to work out how Google+ fits into my daily online routine. Is it work, play, or a mixture of the two? As much as I dislike some of its design and behaviour towards privacy, Facebook is still bookmarked on my browser because of its ability to connect me with friends and family. LinkedIn is a great place to network on a professional level, and Twitter will always be a fantastic way to react to events with the utmost immediacy.
Google+ is a unified message board. Think of each circle as a different message board. Google+ Hangouts Come to Gmail. Google+ and 'ghost town' are a contradiction. After the release of the most recent comScore Media Metrix data, any assertion that Google+ is a "ghost town" can be promptly dismissed.
Not only is Google's new social network more popular than ever, its number of unique visitors topped more than 110 million each month, and the data doesn’t even take into account tablet or mobile phone usage. The comScore data reveals that the number of monthly U.S. Google+ unique visitors increased from 15.229 million in November 2011 to 27.732 million in June 2012. Over a seven-month period, the social network has seen an increase of 82 percent on the number of unique visitors. To put it into perspective, 27.732 million is 12.53 percent of the total U.S. unique visitors. The increase isn't only in the United States, either, as worldwide comScore data shows that Google+ popularity is growing as well, up from 66.756 million in November 2011 to 110.720 million in June 2012.
Google+ Hangouts Is A Platform, Not A Feature. Ever since Google+ launched, one of the most intriguing projects to come out of the company’s social strategy is Google+ Hangouts. Basically, it’s a tool to broadcast live video and interact with multiple people at once. It’s a gorgeous product, and works extremely well on both mobile and desktop environments. Having said that, the folks who are still calling Google+ a “social network” seem to have started to cast a shadow on Google+ Hangouts, specifically Mike Isaac of AllThingsD. Today, he writes: …as time passes in a Hangout, the novelty of a group video chat wears off. The first issue is tracking the “success” of Hangouts. Hangouts – Google Hangouts.
Google Docs - Online documents, spreadsheets, presentations, surveys, file storage and more.