Official Canada Blog
News and notes from Google Canada
More teaching, Less tech-ing: Google Classroom Launches Today
Tuesday, August 12, 2014
When we
introduced
Classroom back in May, we asked educators to give it a try. The response was exciting — more than 100,000 educators from more than 45 countries signed up to try it. Today, we’re starting to open Classroom to all Google Apps for Education users, helping teachers spend more time teaching and less time shuffling papers.
The teachers of Ontario’s Windsor-Essex Catholic District School Board were some of the first to use Classroom. Since May, Google Certified Teacher and WECDSB’s e-Learning expert Joe Sisco has used Classroom in professional development sessions with the Board’s educators. Joe says that teachers have found it incredibly easy to use: “It took about 5 minutes or less to create a class, have 30 teachers join the class, and push out a Google Drawing to have them sort images using a venn diagram.”
Teachers and students have been instrumental in helping us build Classroom. For example, we heard during the preview that educators don’t want to wait until an assignment is turned in to collaborate with students. Now with Classroom, teachers will be able to view and comment on students’ work to help them along the way. We’ve also heard that educators want a simple place to post information and materials about their classes, so we added an “About” page for each course as well.
Teachers can review assignments directly from Classroom and provide feedback and grades to students all in one place.
Starting today, Classroom is available in 42 languages (including Hebrew, Arabic and Persian). It also works well on mobile devices and most popular screen readers. We’ll be rolling out to more users every day, so if you go to
classroom.google.com
with your Apps for Education account and don’t have access yet, please check back soon!
Hopefully Classroom will help you spend a little less time at the photocopier and a little more time doing what you love—teaching.
Posted by Zach Yeskel, Product Manager, Classroom
‘Check Out’ the new Chromebook program at the Brampton Library
Monday, April 7, 2014
Ontario’s
Brampton Library
kicked off its new Chromebook program this month in an effort to help its patrons connect online and make it easier to reach the information that matters to them.
The Internet is transforming our lives at lightning speed, changing the ways we learn, share information, and connect with one another. Canadians have embraced this change, but about
a fifth of us still didn’t have access to the Internet at home in 2012.
Brampton Library’s new program aims to
bridge this digital divide, by providing Internet access to those who don’t have access to a computer at home, including students, seniors and new Canadians.
Library cardholders will now be able to borrow one of 200 Google Chromebooks for use in the library - the largest collection of Chromebooks at a Canadian library!
In addition, the library will be hosting
new courses
to make it easy for anyone to discover the wonders of the Internet. Classes such as ‘Google Essentials’ will focus on on popular web-based Google tools, including search, maps, and translation, while ‘Gmail Basics’ will teach the foundations of email.
We’re very excited to see how the new Chromebook program impacts the community of Brampton and the half a million residents the library serves. Hopefully, we’re a few steps closer to bridging the digital divide and improving web literacy in our neighbourhood.
Posted by James Lambe, Head of Google Enterprise, Canada
Back to School in Canada with Chromebooks and Google Apps
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Last week all across Canada, students started a new school year. Educators everywhere have been getting ready for that first bell to ring and for classrooms to fill up. In the spirit of kicking off a new year, we talked with teachers in several provinces who are empowering their students with Chromebooks and Google Apps. We discovered some really inspiring work going on, so we’re sharing a few of our favorite stories here with you.
Photo credit: Edmonton Public Schools
Grade four students Gabriel and Emily in Edmonton work with their Teacher David Salmon on their student portfolio sites using Chromebooks.
Bill MacKenzie is an Information Communication Technology Consultant for the Upper Grand District School Board just outside Toronto. He first introduced Chromebooks and Google Apps to the district’s 34,000 students two years ago. In deciding between platforms, MacKenzie noted, “What’s different about Google is the collaborative piece. More than one student can work on a project at the same time and share their work with others in the classroom or across the globe. That’s an absolute game changer for us.” Currently, 4,000 shared Chromebooks are deployed throughout the district’s elementary, secondary, and high schools.
IT Director Philippe Lemieux was equally excited about bringing Google Apps and Chromebooks to his French-language public school district in Canada. This fall, all 13,000 students and 38 schools in the Eastern Ontario French Public School Board will be using Google Apps, and over 3,000 Chromebooks will be deployed across the wide-spread school board. While Lemieux was blown away by the potential in Google’s collaboration platform, IT staff benefit too: “Chromebooks are the only thing I can deploy massively without adding staff, without adding resources, without a lot of preparation. It is so easy. We purchase them, we enroll them in our domain, and give them to schools.”
To the west, in Edmonton, Alberta, more than 96,000 students, staff, and teachers are using Chromebooks and Google Apps. Terry Korte coordinates Technology Integration Planning Services for Edmonton Public Schools, where dedicated labs have been replaced by class sets of Chromebooks. Students have access to the technology right in the classroom, and “they’re writing more, editing more, accepting feedback more. Google Apps is a real leveling force across our district.”
We’re excited about what educators in Canada are doing with Google technology and can’t wait to share more about their and others’ work with you throughout this school year.
To learn more about Chromebooks you can contact the Google Education Team through
our website
. Or learn from some educators: Scott Monahan and Jim Jamieson are Digital Literacy Resource Teachers for the York Region District School Board in Ontario. As part of their board's roll out of Google Apps for Education to over 120,000 users, the two have organized a “
Google Camp
” for more than 500 of their teachers next month; join their
G+ community
to get in on the conversation.
Posted by James Lambe, Head of Google Enterprise, Canada
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