Google for Education’s latest tool is helping teachers become more efficient

20 Aug 2019

Google for Education has made teachers lives’ much easier over the years, helping them move towards a digitally-connected era with software such as G Suite for Education and Google Classroom.

The newly-unveiled Google Assignments, an updated version of CourseKit, has plenty of new features, seeking to help teachers save time when it comes to grading and checking papers.

According to TechCrunch, “The software combines aspects of Google Docs, Google Drive and Google Search into a new tool that’s focused on the creation and management of schoolwork, including the collection, grading and feedback process — and now, the ability to check for plagiarism, as well.”

#GoogleAssignments is the new tool that brings together the capabilities of @GoogleDocs, @GoogleDrive & Search into one place, making collecting and grading student work streamlined. Learn what this new time saving tool can do: https://t.co/0NQuPYbsc9. #BackToSchool pic.twitter.com/jb65GRrK8I

— Google for Education (@GoogleForEdu) August 18, 2019

Google Assignments also allows students to run “originality reports” up to three times to check for plagiarism, giving them the chance to fix their errors before handing in their assignments, saving teachers valuable time by the time it comes to grading.

“With the plagiarism checker — the feature called “Originality Reports” — teachers can check for missed citations and other issues. When the work is turned in and locked, the feature will check the student’s text against “hundreds of billions of web pages” and “tens of millions of books,” says Google.”

When the students submit their assignments, teachers will receive the final Originality Report that indicates missed citations and notes the sources.

In a press release, Brian Hendricks, Product Manager for G Suite for Education, said, “We’ve heard from instructors that they copy and paste passages into Google Search to check if student work is authentic, which can be repetitive, inefficient and biased.

“They also often spend a lot of time giving feedback about missed citations and improper paraphrasing. By integrating the power of Search into our assignment and grading tools, we can make this quicker and easier.”

Google for Education helps teachers become more organised

This could be interesting for those who use an LMS other than #GoogleClassroom. I’m going to keep an eye on this. reply if you are using it…keep me posted. #GoogleAssignments https://t.co/pA3yFxZcng

— TabaldoOnTech 💻🎙 (@TabaldoOnTech) August 18, 2019

Other new features include a comment bank that saves teachers the hassle of having to type the same feedback repeatedly and the ability to assign files easily to students.

According to the website, “You can also apply rubrics to keep grading transparent. Assignments makes it easy and secure to accept Docs and Drive files by automatically adjusting permissions to prevent student editing during grading.”

Using the Assignments tool, teachers can generate new assignments using Docs and Drive, and provide each student with a unique copy. They can also organise coursework according to class, date, and student, and adapt existing work for new courses.

Currently, teachers can sign up for the beta version of Assignments as long as they are already using G Suite for Education. It will officially go live later on this fall, according to Engadget.