Google Classroom was the marvelous piece of education technology that allowed for more organized and focused classrooms by alleviating clutter. Now, the company has introduced the Google Classroom application program interface.

“The API makes it easier for developers and administrators to use Classroom's resources. With these tools, they can quickly manage and provision Google Classroom courses en masse, at the school or district level,” said D. Frank Smith of EdTechMagazine, “Now, anyone can begin syncing their Classroom roster and assignments with third-party platforms, including student information systems (SIS) and learning management systems (LMS).”

Integrating third party apps is like a shortcut to learning. Applications like Google Sheets can be used to integrate classroom data into Google Classroom, making it easier for data to be shared among educators, administrators, and students.

This lowers the time it takes to transfer information and increases instruction and preparation time for educators making it an overall more efficient process of keeping track of your classroom.

“In addition to the enhanced functionality, access to the API also helps teachers seamlessly integrate their apps with Google Classroom,” according to Smith, “The API is also now supported in Apps Script, which allows users to create add-ons and modification for Google Docs, Sheets or Forms.”

“In June, Pear Deck CEO Riley Eynon-Lynch demonstrated how his company was using the API to streamline student invites to Google Classroom — which had been a stumbling block for teachers everywhere. Using the toolset made by Pear Deck, teachers could send custom invites to groups of students, bypassing the time-consuming entry of six-character access codes," Smith added.

Google Classroom has been revered as one of the most popular ways for administrators, developers and educators to organize themselves and be on the same page at all times. Sharing grades is one thing, but being able to increase the instruction time and decrease the time you spending fumbling over grades and student login makes a much bigger difference.

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Article by Navindra Persaud, Education World Contributor.