G Suite to Google Workspace for Education Part 1

G Suite for Education officially changed their name to Google Workspace for Education.  This change will give more flexibility and updates to all users in the Fundamentals Workspace and the Plus Workspace (old Enterprise). Click here to read more. Since our district is already an Enterprise subscriber, there won't be a lot of changes for the end-user, but there are some really nice new features in the Google Admin Console. 

This update is also providing some changes in each of the apps for Workspace for Education.  Be prepared to see several changes happen to Drive, Chromebooks, Classroom, Meet, and Google Docs, Forms and Jamboards.  Most of these changes will role out later in 2021, but will be highlighted when they hit our domain.  

Drive:  Drive will have new storage capacities moving forward.  This means districts will have 100TB of pooled storage.  This may seem like a lot but in our District we are really close to this number.  With the pandemic, the number of videos created and stored on Google Drive has gone up over 10 times this year. But don't worry we will know who the high users are.  We will also look into removing student and staff data from our storage for those who are no longer in the district. 

Forms: Students will now be able to save their progress on a form.  Forms will automatically save a DRAFT for 30 days or until the form has been submitted.  This is great for students who typically take a little longer to take an assessment, or from faulty internet connection.  Sign up to be part of the beta testing.

Jamboard:   Revision history is coming which is really great since before this update, there was no way to track who was doing what on a Jam and no way to revert back to a previous version without using the undo button.

Docs: Citations was updated earlier this year, but now you can enter a URL and it will create a citation in the right format. Smart Compose & AutoCorrect are now available in other languages. Document Approval has been added so when an approval is needed before a document can be sent out district/school wide, you can now request approval from specific people and then see who has approved and who you need to follow up with.

As with all updates, some will hit our domain earlier then others, but many of these will roll out later in 2021. For an easy to use guide take a look at the graphic created by John R. Sowash of Chrmbook.com.