Google Adds New Free 'Classroom' Tool to Apps for Education Suite

Google on Tuesday has announced a new free education tool called Classroom under the Google Apps for Education suite.

Google made the announcement on its official blog. It detailed the tentative release date at its Classroom page, saying, "By September, Classroom will be available to any school using Google Apps for Education. If your school doesn't yet have Google Apps for Education, your IT administrator can sign up here."

The tool is in beta and is available via an invite request. Google said that teachers and professors can apply for a preview of Classroom starting Tuesday, and based on the number of requests, the company will invite a limited number of educators to try it.

According to Google, Classroom tool will help teachers to "create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease." It can be easily set up with a code shared to all to join it or even teachers can add students directly.

The Classroom tool is based on the principle that "educational tools should be simple and easy to use," and is aimed at "giving teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn."

Google has detailed other new features like paperless assignments via Google Docs, Google Drive, Gmail, and things like real-time communication with students to make this Classroom tool beneficial.

"Classroom helps teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly. When teachers create assignments, they can choose to share a single document, or automatically make a copy for each student," explained Google on the Classroom page.

Also it added that 'Classroom contains no ads'. It ensures privacy, and will never use any data for advertising purposes.