LEIGHTON SPENCER: Hi there, and welcome.
My name is Leighton Spencer, and I'm
a Google Workspace for Education Specialist focused
on higher education.
As part of Google Cloud's Student Success
week, I wanted to share how students
are using our tools inside and outside the classroom
in today's presentation, creating new possibilities
in higher ed with Google Workspace for Education.
Thank you for joining.
Today, we will be talking about and diving into the education
landscape, showing you some of the tools students
are using to be creative, collaborative, and productive.
And finally, we'll wrap up with a picture of what
the student journey looks like.
Over 170 million students and educators
worldwide use Google Workspace for Education.
Throughout the last two years, we've
witnessed the resilience and creativity of students
as they've dealt with hybrid learning environments
and headed back to campus.
In many ways, higher education faculty, staff, and students
took lemons and made lemonade.
And as the future of the classroom continues to evolve,
Google Workspace for Education is
helping students bolster creativity, seamlessly
collaborate, and save time with these productive tools.
As you can see, there's a lot happening with Google Workspace
for Education.
We're constantly working to take user feedback
and develop products to make the most flexible,
collaborative, and helpful, not to mention safe and secure.
Let's dive into how students are using Google Workspace
tools inside and outside the classroom,
helping them to become more successful, organized,
and productive, and to build ideas of the future.
In the past, you've heard us talk about neat features
like breakout rooms, closed captions in five languages,
improved hand-raising, Q&A, polling, and the ability
to have 25 co-hosts.
Students and faculty alike found these tools extremely
helpful during remote learning.
And we are seeing the continuation
of usage for some of these features even in the classroom.
One integration that stuck out was the wonderful tool
called Jamboard, which became the digital whiteboard
while students were working from home.
Although we know that there's nothing like writing something
on a board to brainstorm, the ability
to save information and continue to edit or add details
has been a benefit for students.
Instead of taking a picture or transcribing
what was on the board, they're using
Jamboards to add sticky notes, images, or links
into a visual notebook.
One visual organization tool that students enjoy
is the ability to customize their Gmail
inbox based on their classes and activities.
They first create labels with the names of their classes
or professors and then customize those labels
to have coordinating colors.
For extra visual and creative students,
they often use the same color coding
system for their calendar.
It is easy to set up labels based on information
like the sender or topic, which allows
them to automate this process.
From there, they often also add additional visual cues,
such as start to mark time sensitive or important items.
Many students are quite active on campus,
participating in student clubs or organizations, sports,
volunteer opportunities, and more.
Faculty are not the only ones using Forms these days.
Some examples we've seen are students
using Forms to help select meeting
times, event registrations, organizing tryouts, voting,
and more.
Students are able to use originality reports
to check their own work before submitting assignments
to their professors.
Why is this important?
Well, it can actually help them ensure
that their work is authentic, allowing
them to check citations, and encouraging
them to use self-governance instead
of facing the punitive measures of plagiarism.
When it comes to group projects, there
can be a lot of moving pieces.
That's why with Smart Canvas, students
are able to easily link to other drive files,
tag each other when organizing action items,
or even making a checklist for next steps.
This is just one way we're bringing the content
and connections that transform collaboration
into a richer, better experience in Google Workspace.
It's also worth noting, all students learn differently.
With Google Docs, students can enable voice to text
to help them capture their thoughts
and ideas without actually having to type them out.
Creativity can come in many forms.
Often students are required to create visual presentations
to showcase their work or research.
With Google Slides, students can choose from templates
or even use the power of Google Search
to find images or Google Drive to upload
their own files within their presentations.
Sheets helps students organize and analyze data.
Formula Suggestions intelligently
recommends formulas and functions
to use based on the data you are analyzing.
And Google is accepting over 3 million formula suggestions
each week, strengthening the intelligence
to help students be as successful as possible.
Formula Corrections also provides
intelligent suggestions to help you troubleshoot formulas,
catch errors, or deliver insights from your data faster.
We showed you some examples of how
students make the most out of Google Workspace for Education
tools.
These easy-to-use tools come naturally
to digital natives who have been familiar with technology
in the classroom since their K-12 days.
And now we're taking these skills to the next level
to not only stay organized and productive
but also to collaborate across institutions
or even continents.
But how are these skills translating into the workplace?
Outside of Google for Education's 170 million users,
there are 3 billion Workspace users
from companies and organizations around the globe,
companies like Whirlpool, National Institute of Health
Research, Wayfair, Spotify, Etsy, PWC, and Salesforce,
not to mention state and local governments use
these tools every day.
Additionally, 96% of Forbes' next billion startups
use Workspace.
We see students able to transition
into the workforce with ease because of the familiarity
with Google Workspace tools.
Just like the collaboration with classmates, other institutions,
or even students abroad, the workers of the future
are ready to cross-functionally collaborate in the workforce
no matter what the future holds.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
We hoped you enjoy the conversation
around new possibilities in higher education with Google
Workspace.
Thanks again.