With the recent announcement that Google Classroom will be available to all Google Apps for Education schools by the week of August 11th, schools that have also adopted iPads are interested in exploring the platform to determine if it will integrate into their existing deployment to provide a helpful and approachable workflow solution.
While there are currently a number of workflow solutions and Learning Management Systems that work well with iPads, Google Classroom will likely become a top contender for iPad classrooms because of the integration with both the Google Drive and Google Docs iPad apps as well as any number of iPad creativity apps. While there is not an iPad app for Google Classroom, the web interface works seamlessly and allows students to turn in any assignment or file that is in their Google Drive account.
Why Use iPads With Google Classroom:
- Students access Google Classroom through the web on iPad. This means that no additional apps need to be installed or updated.
- Any assignment created and distributed by the teacher that is a Google Document or Spreadsheet will automatically bump students to the Google Docs or Spreadsheet app for completion when they click on their individual file within the Google Classroom web interface.
- Any PDF that is distributed to students as an assignment through Google Classroom will automatically open in the Google Drive app when clicked on within Google Classroom. Students can then use the “open in” function to send the PDF to any app – such as Explain Everything or Notability – needed to complete the assignment.
- Any app that supports uploading to Google Drive as an export option can then be turned in as a completed assignment. A few of these apps include, but are not limited to:
- Explain Everything
- iMovie (send to camera roll first & then upload to Google Drive)
- Book Creator
- Creative Book Builder
- Notability
- Multiple file types can be selected and uploaded as assignments. This means that teachers can create templates and curate resources to guide student creation.
- ePub (Book Creator & Creative Book Builder)
- PDF (Notability & Book Creator)
- XPL (Explain Everything Project)
- MOV (iMovie)
- MP4 (Explain Everything video export)
- Google Document
