Google Is Bringing the Paperless Classroom to Teachers’ Phones

Now kids can snap photos of their homework

Google has spent the last couple of years making a big push into the classroom with its affordable Chromebook laptops, education-focused versions of its productivity apps, and its Classroom learning management software, which aims to help teachers reduce the use of paper in their schools. Now the company is taking another step by bringing its Classroom app to iOS and Android devices.

Classroom already lets teachers issue and grade assignments using apps like Google Docs and Google Calendar. Using the new mobile app, students will be able to take pictures and attach them to projects their teachers have assigned in the Classroom system. In a blog post, Google offers examples of a student attaching a photo of her science project or getting a parent to take a picture of homework she accidentally left at home.

The Classroom app will also be integrated into the share functionality of many other apps, so users can attach PDFs, drawings and other media to Classroom assignments. Finally, the new app will automatically cache video streams and assignment information each time the app opens with an Internet connection so that content can also be accessed for offline viewing later on.

Google is also expanding the desktop version of Classroom with a new teacher assignments page, where teachers can review completed and outstanding student assignments on a single screen. Classroom will also introduce the ability to archive individual classes to make them read-only and remove them from the main Classroom home page.

Though Google hasn’t released user base figures for Classroom, the company says 30 million assignments have been turned in using the product since it launched six months ago