Google’s Classroom education initiative launched its own set of mobile apps yesterday. The initiative has been around for six months but only on the web where some 30 million assignments that have been submitted via the platform since its debut.
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The launch of the Android and iOS apps means that students and teachers can snap a picture of an experiment they are doing and attach it to their assignments. Google says that this is useful when students forget their homework at home and someone can easily send it to them and they can turn it in with the app.
Google does however stress that the app has its limits when it comes to helping students get homework they have forgotten at home. “Of course, if the dog has actually eaten it, Classroom can’t help you”, it says.
On a more serious note, this photo feature could easily help schools in rural areas where laboratories are non-existent. Those schools could, for instance, enter into a relationship with a school that has laboratories and use the app to share experiments. A simple photo is also limiting as learners will not see the chemical reactions. Perhaps Google should look into embedding video sharing on the app.
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The other thing that the app can do is share from other apps by easily attaching images, PDFs and web pages to their assignments. Google explains that “when you’re in a drawing app, you can create a graphic for an assignment. When you click “share” in that app, Classroom will come up as an option, and you can attach the graphic to an assignment.”
The biggest advantage of the app is that it also counter the issue of expensive data. Though students and teachers need to create assignments with internet at first, when the internet is not available, students can still access class streams and assignment information as their assignments are automatically cached and made available for off line viewing.
Moving the app to mobile will improve continuous interaction between students and teachers and because students are on phones constantly it will also improve engagement.
Google has promised to introduce more apps for both iOS and Android in future updates.
