Google Inc. launched their Google Classroom initiative in August 2014 in an effort to make Google Apps for Education simpler for educators to use. Now they are adding to this initiative with the launch of their Classroom-branded mobile app for Android and iOS.

The app will increase collaboration between teachers and students, including the ability for students to take photos, like a drawing, and then attach them to their assignments. Even if a student has forgotten their homework, a person can snap a photo at home and send it through.

Other features include the ability for students to attach images, PDFs and more from other apps right onto their assignments. Sharing from other apps is easy. A student can click the share button and Classroom will be one of the options.

The Classroom app will also allow offline-caching so that students and teachers can always access assignments even when there is no Internet connection.

Google Apps for Education has more than 40 million users including teachers, students and administrators. In the six months since the launch of Google Classroom, over 30 million assignments have been submitted.

In addition, Google are also adding to their desktop version of Classroom. Included in the expansion is a new teacher’s assignments page, where teachers will be able to have quick access to all assignments, and see which they have checked. Finally, they will also see which students have not completed their assignments all in one single page. The update to the Classroom desktop version will also include the ability to archive old classes and make them read only.

Google will continue to add more features to both the iOS and Android Classroom apps; however the current version of the app is available now for free.

 image courtesy of UBC.ca