Google – Helping schools stay connected in response to Coronavirus

These cloud-based tools (which include Google Classroom, Gmail, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms and more) are currently used by more than 100 million teachers and students, and can be used from any device in more than 40 languages.

Here are some additional resources around our recent effort to support educators and students globally.
Sign up for G Suite for Education. Schools can sign up for G Suite for Education (for free) to get access to Gmail, Calendar, Classroom, Docs, Slides, Sheets, Forms, Sites, Jamboard and Hangouts Meet, and many more to help with distance learning.

Use the advanced Meet features available to schools: We recently announced that advanced features of Hangouts Meet will now be free for schools to use through July. You can have up to 250 people in a call together, record meetings, and livestream content for up to 100,000 people within the domain. If using Hangouts Meet, you can find best practices for setting up Meet for distance learning here,
including how to turn on live captions, limit bandwidth usage, and use Slides Q&A for engagement while live streaming. We also have new educator controls in Hangouts Meet.

Distance Learning resources and Teach From Home:
To help educators unfamiliar with distance learning or as much familiarity with our Google for Education
tools, we launched

Teach from Home (g.co/teachfromhome),
an initiative to create a hub of information, tips, resources and tools to help teachers keep teaching during the school closures. We also have launched this resource page, have an ongoing series of blog posts, as well a webinar series to discuss tips and best practices for distance learning. To help organize resources, training and information on how to set up schools and classrooms for distance learning, we created guides for Education Leaders & Educators.

Information on sending and using Chromebooks at home for distance learning: As school admins
prepare contingency plans, we’re sharing how they can quickly and securely prepare their school’s Chromebooks to go home with students, with our new Help Center article on how to prepare Chromebooks for e-learning days at home. Your child may have brought home their Chromebook from school, and you can reference this article to learn more about it and how to support. If you have a Chromebook at home, students can learn on and use those as well.

Finding educational content: In partnership with education-focused content creators on
YouTube we launched YouTube Learning Hub, which we’re in the process of expanding and localizing as a destination for safe, curriculum-relevant learning content. Parents and families can find resources on YouTube’s Learn@home. Additionally, the Distance Learning page on the Chromebook App Hub
shares offers from our integrated solutions partners that can help schools during the COVID-19 crisis. These resources are directly related to distance learning (defined as remote instruction between teachers & students), and are completely free or discounted tools.

We are collecting and sharing additional stories and strategies through our Teacher Center and social channels including Twitter and Facebook. Along with those, the Google for Education blog, Teach From Home, and the Google for Education page are the best places to check for updates.

If you have ideas or suggestions for supporting distance learning with Google tools, or stories of how the tools are helping, please submit them via this suggestion form.

We hope these tools can be helpful to you and your school community.

Kind regards,
Ivett Likár