REVIEW: (Reposted to meet week 13 guidelines…need to read instructions) Hi Chris, Sounds like this is an intrapeneurial venture and we are your google higher-ups. As a teacher, I love google classroom. I use it for just about everything and there are a number of things I wish they would add. My understanding though, is that google has stated they do not want google classroom to be a full blown LMS. Your presentation will have to convince them (us) otherwise. I like your added features. A parent portal would also be very welcome. As a corporation, I would like to here more about how these features will gain us customers. Are we losing customers for not having these features or are we alienating teachers by not having them. Survey data to support your chances will help your proposal to carry extra clout. As a higher up, I would consider your proposals but would like some extra data. Should these prove to be features that would attract customers from other platforms to us, I would seriously consider their development.
REVIEW: (Reposted to meet week 13 guidel…
2 Aug
Hi Dan, Thanks for your comments. We have actually discussed in our school (which uses GAFE) how to provide some sort of parent portal... at the moment GAFE only supplies students with @schoolname.ca login addresses (the only way to access GAFE sites / Drive / Docs etc), so I'm not sure how that would work. Perhaps it's something they will look at, though I'm of the opinion that parents really don't need to be as involved in the school lives of students (in Grades 8-12... it may be a different story for younger kids). We have a bit of a 'helicopter parent' issue at our school (where parents micromanage their kids to the point that they have no lives outside of school & academics: clubs, sports, cram school, tutors, lessons, etc... they barely get a chance to catch 5-6 hours of sleep!) so I'm not sure giving access to parents is a good idea. As for your suggestions as a corporation, I do believe that having the added features of a full LMS will attract schools into giving up Moodle/Blackboard etc as their preferred LMS and hop over to Google. The added incentives involved in becoming fully "Google" as far as revenue would likely come from the fact that students and teachers are more accustomed to working in the cloud-based environment and may be more likely to purchase, as a school, Chromebooks, or other Google-compabible devices (Google Cardboard, phones and tablets running Android), since at the moment, the GAFE subscription is free.
