Google Workspace for Education includes Google products like Classroom, Meet, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, and Slides, to create an online ecosystem for learning. The Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals edition is available at no per student cost to available institutions.
$3
per student, per year
Kaltura Virtual Classroom
Score 6.0 out of 10
N/A
Newrow is a virtual classroom software solution, now from Kaltura (acquired January 2020).
Google [Workspace for Education (formerly G Suite for Education)] is pretty darn good [at] meeting the needs for educators and students. It is not designed to run your business office, transportation group, or lunch services. It doesn't need to be good at those. Focus on teachers and students. They do that really, really well. The Google folks continue to add features that help serve teacher and students. For example, they have really done a good job of adding Google Meet features such as polling and breakout rooms. Those features required a paid subscription to Workspace, but it makes sense since those features compete with Zoom, which requires a subscription for those services.
Kaltura allows users to upload and watch content at their own pace and convenience. This is what our entire program has been based on since we started using Kaltura, and the performance has increased (or at least the analytics suggest that).
The Admin controls are splendid. They make it easy to manage your computer fleet and user database.
Google quickly adapts to needed changes and pushes those out with minimum disruption to services. Just update your Chrome browser and you are on your way. No need to download and update numerous patches that take extensive time to install.
From the education side, having access to Google Vault is extremely valuable. Vault gives us the ability to retrieve any document ever created by an account user. That is incredibly necessary in the education world.
Always up, never down. Compatible with so many different platforms, OSes, and tools. For instance, someone can be on a phone, tablet, laptop, and all of those tools are compatible with Google apps like Meet, Docs, Slides, and anything else Google based. It's flexiblity is fantastic and meets our changing hardware and software requirements
Ultimately, since we use Chromebooks, it did not make sense to choose Microsoft. Its price points are significantly higher, and the platform is more business-oriented than tailored to the education market
