During the pandemic, people turned to technology more than ever before, including for distance education (DAD). This enabledgiving continuity to learning, showing that one can teach and learn from anywhere and with any device, in school as well as at home.
Technology is a valuable tool for teaching, although the changes of the past year and the abrupt alternation of face-to-face teaching and DAD have been challenging for teachers as much as for children and their families.
With the Dpcm of March 8, 2020, the government took a stand on the scheduling of distance learning, but not everyone was ready to start.
In education, as in business, the pandemic has brought into play habits, tools and needs, pushing academic realities toward digitization. To experiment with online learning, many have begun using applications from Google for Education.
Even schools like businesses and public administration are not excluded from digitization
Schools, like businesses and Public Administration, are not excluded from digitization processes.
The road is set: over time we have seen blackboards and chalk replaced with LIMs (Interactive Multimedia Boards Interactive Whiteboards) and the record and report cards transformed into electronic format. Much else will change, so we need to ride the wave of digital transformation.
In the past year more elementary, middle, and high schools have turned to cloud solutions to understand and drive the success of their students, expanding access to learning and supports, including cost-effectively.
power2Cloud as a Google Education partner in Italy has supported, and continues to support, the work of schools of all levels in this process, accompanying teachers to discover the most useful features to improve learning even at a distance.
Many have begun adopting Google for Education, an ecosystem of applications that Google makes available for free, which includes automatic updates,secure devices, but also operating system with browser and hardware.
But there's more because teachers can count on the help of automated analytics tools, such as classroom engagement reports, to continually review and optimize their programs.
Have you never used Google for Education? Don't you know all of its features?
If you want to activate Google for Education or if you are taking your first steps in using this technology for distance education as well,our team can help you, let's talk.
The biggest difficulties for schools that were not yet digitized
Still today, a year later, many schools are using improvised, unsafe and underperforming solutions that do not facilitate the work of teachers and administrators, who are then called upon to control all the work and also the students.
How did teachers experience the transition from classroom instruction to online instruction? No one was prepared for a pandemic this is clear, but the difficulties were twofold for schools anchored in traditional teaching methods, lacking the tools and knowledge needed.
Another aspect not to be underestimated was that related to access to devices for children who lack them. So strong was this evidence that the government allocated 85 million euros in total to help students, starting with the least affluent, and teachers take distance learning classes.
While dissent and consensus for DAD overlap and confuse, one must reflect on the fact that it is not ruled out that as in labor, a hybrid solution, thus involving a mix of multiple opportunities, in-presence and distance, will come about, so one must continue to organize.
It must also be said that digitization should not always be perceived as a parachute to be resorted to only when necessary, at the last moment. Thetechnology is a means to achieve some goals faster than others, one must use it properly to fit one's own paths.
Google Education: the best of Google for education
Google's mission is to support learning, a goal it has invested in for more than 15 years. This is possible because it works closely with educators, then with the needs of academia.
Google for Education offers products and solutions that help school education with commitment and innovation:
Chromebook
Chromebooks are a range of simple, yet powerful devices that you can administer and manage from a single platform.
They have built-in accessibility, productivity and security features, with automatic updates, to enhance teaching and learning, anywhere and from any device.
They are also affordable because you can share them with an unlimited number of students and reuse them in a variety of ways. Chromebooks have the lowest cost on the market, not to mention that Google Workspace for Education and Google Classroom are free for schools and universities.
Chrome Education upgrade
Schools can unlock the full functionality of Chrome OS with the Chrome Education Upgrade, to counteract increased teacher workload, free up IT resources, and give educators more time to focus on learning outcomes without compromising security.
Google Workspace for Education: use Google's free and secure tools for education
Help your school, college, or vocational school collaborate easily, simplify education, and maintain a safe learning environment with Google Workplace for Education.
Documents and services areavailable online via browser, thanks to simple and intuitive technology. The applications included in Google Workspace for Education are powerful on their own, but they work even better together because they are natively integrated.
You can work online and offline, edit Documents, Spreadsheets and Presentations in real time. Simplify collaboration and communications with email, chat, and video conferencing.
Google Classroom
Educational tools should be simple and easy to use. Google Classroom is designed to give teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn.
Google Classroom is built with teachers, for teachers, and is part of Google Workspace for Education.You can create virtual lessons, assignments, submit grades and feedback, all from one platform. You have all the tools to be organized and productive.
Google continues to work day after day on its solutions to deliver new features and make learning more effective, whether schools operate in presence, in a hybrid model or with distance learning.
Transform teaching with Google Education, shall we begin?
- Exploit the potential of technology in education as well to achieve results in your students' learning
- Support innovative, effective, and evidence-based teaching practice
- Flexibly and collaboratively plan and implement comprehensive and coherent school pedagogy
- Customize learning environments for each student, at scale
- Offer solutions with an evidence-based approach to positively impact learning outcomes
- Provide teachers with content for their lessons, help students increase future skills including in digital citizenship
Advanced Security
Google is committed to creating products that protect student and teacher privacy, providing schools and universities with the best security to prevent ever-evolving threats, both internally and online.
Your data is safe and remains your property, it is Google's responsibility to protect it.
Google provides platform services and secure servers, making it easy for administrators to manage and monitor data security.
There are no advertisements in the core services of Google Workspace for Education. Students' personal information is not used to create profiled messages.
Google complies with security and privacy standards. Google's services comply with privacy and security requirements and meet exacting standards.
Automatic updates, customizations and scalability
Here are other benefits we want to highlight, as Google for Education solutions offer automatic updates that avoid manual and repetitive actions, follow users' needs and purposes through customizations, and seamless scalability.
Let's see together:
- Automatic updates and easy-to-manage policies keep schools in check, so you can spend more time creating an environment with high educational impact.
- Choice, customization, and scalability:choose from a range of options and implement a solution that meets your school's needs and allows you to scale seamlessly.
- To meet the unique and evolving needs of every school, Google for Education offers the flexibility to choose from a versatile range of devices and solutions.
- IT administrators can remotely configure new devices and manage policies across an entire school or district with just a few clicks.
- Each individual user, teacher or student, can create a personalized teaching and learning environment across devices, ready the moment they log in.
Accessibility. Thanks to Google Education, education is for all students
Google Education products are developed with this need in mind, because school must be accessible to all students.
If everyone in a class has the opportunity to participate in the learning experience, the whole group benefits, don't you think?"
Thanks to Google Workspace for Education and the technological support of Chromebooks,digital lessons are also conducted remotely with accessible tools, designed even for students with physical and sensory disabilities or specific learning disorders.
Some features of Google Workspace for Education related to accessibility:
- Screen reader
- Braille display
- Keyboard shortcuts
- Subtitles
- Vocal typing
- High contrast support
- Change buttons from icons to text
Google Education, every teacher's ally
Recently more than 50 new features have been released in Google products for education:
- The move from G Suite for Education to Google Workspace for Education offers more choice and control.
- New tools are coming to Classroom, saving time in setting up classes.
- New Meet features offer teachers more visibility and control. These include the ability to set criteria for who can participate in school video calls.
- In Chrome OS, Google is introducing more than 40 new Chromebook models to meet the specific needs of each school. More than 500 policies in the Administration Console will help you manage and optimize Chromebooks.
- Schools that want to understand student needs and scale can turn to Google Cloud Student Success Services, virtual assistants to support students 24/7 with immediate answers.
Google is working to give every teacher simple, assistive tools to focus on what they do best: helping students reach their potential.
- Classroom add-ons, allow teachers to integrate their favorite third-party tools and content seamlessly. They will have access to tracking students more easily to see who is falling behind.
- More control for teachers over virtual classrooms with the new Google Meet features. Included is the ability to end meetings, simultaneously and quickly mute audio for all participants.
- The screen recording tool, directly in Chrome OS, will allow teachers and students to capture real-time instruction in the classroom and at home.
Equipping every student with the tools and skills they need to succeed is one of Google's goals. This means focusing oninclusivity and accessibility, so that we reach students wherever they are.
- Features will be added to upload images of paper assignments and to make the Classroom app for Android work offline. So that students can download assignments and complete them even if the connection is not stable.
- Emoji reactions in Meet are coming soon and will offer students new light and interactive ways to interact. Meet will work better even if you have low bandwidth. This is to accommodate weaker Internet connections, allowing students to stay on track seamlessly.
- In addition, the new accessibility features, such as colored sliders on Chromebooks and Switch Access, allow students to learn with tools suited to their needs.
Google is committed to evolve products and features day by day,. listening and learning from the experts: the people who use its products. The technology and tools dedicated to education must reflect their needs.
Why turn to a Google Education partner?
Already in the recent past, thinking aboute-learning tools for distance education was futuristic. The same was true for the world of work, when work meant work done at one's office desk.
Even when power2Cloud G Suite (now Google Workspace) was born, it was the first Google Cloud solution we adopted to increase productivity, security, even on the go. Now we can't imagine another way of working.
The new challenge today involves the world of education. As a partner of Google For Education in Italy our team has certifications and skills to meet the new demands and support in this change sSchools of all levels, Professional Institutes and Universities.
Google Workspace for Education is a free tool for schools and has many feature-rich applications, however to use them to the fullest you need to know them.
We help you use Google Education: activation, training and support
power2Cloud is a Google for Education partner in Italy, we follow Schools, Professional Institutes and Universities all over Italy. Our certified team can remotely support school leaders, teachers and IT administrators in activation and training activities to redefine learning faster through the use of Google technology.
Today, hands are no longer dirty with chalk, blackboards are multimedia, electronic registers, School and University are followed even away from the school desks, especially at this time of COVID-19 emergency.
Teachers need resources and suggestions for continuing remote lessons and IT administrators need guidance for implementing security.
power2Cloud enthusiastically walks you through this digital transformation to effectively use all applications.
Google is a bit like a teacher, it simplifies everything that is complicated and allows you to use it in a simple way to provide more interactive education, not fall behind.
We are here to help you! If you are interested in learning more about Google Education solutions or would like to speak directly with our team, please contact us.