Google Debuts Classroom, An Education Platform For Teacher-Student Communication

This actually is a HUGE deal for teachers and schools, and it will provide a LOT of value.

One of the largest frustrations teachers have with going paperless is managing the workflow of assignments. Learning management systems like Blackboard or Moodle were often a feasible solution to this issue, since teachers could share files for download and students could upload finished assignments.

Google Apps for Education products (namely Google Docs) disrupted this. Because Google Docs allows teachers to have access to student work (collaborative editing), it allows him/her to give feedback and support throughout the entire creative process.

That's a very big deal, and it makes the [upload/download] features in Blackboard or Moodle less useful. Plugins that allowed access to Google Drive folders were built for both of those tools (as well as others- like Schoology, Edmodo, Haiku, Canvas, etc.) but they stopped short when it came to managing the workflow of creating, sharing, organizing, and collecting collaborative files in the Google Apps ecosystem.

In 2011, Hapara [ed tech company, graduated iK12 accelerator, http://hapara.com/] entered the scene. Their tool laid on top of Google Apps products and streamlined the process of managing classrooms by giving teachers or administrators a bird's eye view of all student work- their files, recent activity, etc. That workflow problem was solved.

However, not every school is willing to pay for the advanced features of Hapara- so there still wasn't a free solution that every teacher could access. Some of the team at the NY-based school charter network New Visions for Public Schools built and released some of the scripts they were using to manage processes [http://youpd.org]. Some of the more popular scripts included 'Doctopus' [to manage assignment creation/collecting] and 'Flubaroo' [to automate the grading of quizzes created in Google Forms].

Again, the workflow issue was solved. However, a lot of teachers weren't tech-saavy enough (yet!) to utilize all of these scripts of piece-meal all of them together to build a comprehensive solution.

So yes, this is a huge deal, because it allows teachers to easily manage the tools they are already using (and they are definitely using GAFE products- literally tens of millions of students and teachers have access to those tools).

Also, as an aside-- I've noticed comments that say, "teachers do not want to create assignments" or "teachers would go white seeing a room full of kids with their laptops turned away". Please do not assume that most teachers are resistant to learning how to use digital tools. Schools are dealing with a variety of issues related to this shift, including weak infrastructure, broken and outdated equipment, lack of time for training, lack of a shared vision and implementation planning, lack of support, negative media coverage, etc. If any teacher is resistant, it is likely because he/she hasn't had enough support to adapt in a meaningful way yet. This is a BIG change for teachers and it completely changes the fundamentals of how many of them have operated. Think about the last time we went through a shift this dramatic... the closest thing to what the Internet has done for education is probably what the printing press did for education. That's a big deal, and there are going to be growing pains.

The issue is how strong their support services are.