Redefining what it means to go to school in New York

Posted by Stephen Fang, Google for Education team

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editors note: New York is seeing great success with Google for Education. We talked to educators and administrators to reflect on how technology has changed what it means to teach and learn in New York. From group projects to collaborative lesson plans to online assessments, technology has improved the learning experience for students across the state. To learn more about Google’s solutions for Education, join the webinar with Amherst Central School District today at 2pm ET / 11am PT.

Learning isn’t just about listening to a lecture or reading a textbook. Similarly, educational transformation isn’t just about introducing technology. It’s about encouraging students to think differently, work together and make their education personal. Schools in New York are giving students more freedom and flexibility to learn and collaborate with the help of tools like Google Apps for Education, Chromebooks and Google Classroom. We’re highlighting a few ways New York schools are transforming their classrooms and benefiting from technology:

Enabling teachers to think outside the box

At Massapequa Public Schools (case study), teachers are providing students with a variety of learning resources, from articles and text-based guides to videos and audio content. For example, when students were studying Pythagorean theorem in math class, the teacher filmed a video showing students the math concept, a² + b² = c², so they could reference the information from home. When students have access to digital learning materials at home, they’re able to learn anytime, anywhere.

With Google for Education, students have access to learning resources anytime, anywhere. Says Bob Schilling, executive director for assessment, student data and technology services at Massapequa Public Schools: “Students watch videos and access their teacher’s resources at home in order to be introduced to concepts, then spend class time applying those concepts in authentic experiences. That changes the value of a 40-minute class period.”

Getting moms and dads involved in education 

Amherst Central Schools (case study) wants parents to be a bigger part of their children’s learning and is using technology to get them more involved. With Google Apps for Education and Google Classroom, parents can see whether their child has started a project or needs a nudge. Students access their work wherever they are and can share progress with their families. For example, Jake, a third grader, shared his presentation about Canadian culture and history with his parents as he worked on the assignment so they could see what he was learning.

Teachers also create instructional videos to help parents take on the role of the teacher at home. While Michael Milliman, grade 5 math teacher at Smallwood Drive Elementary School, taught students a complex problem, parents could reference the 30-second video that Milliman created. “Learning is meant to be a social and collaborative process,” says Anthony Panella, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction at Amherst Central Schools. The district is helping extend the social aspect of learning to include parents.

Teaching students technology and teamwork skills for the future 

Rochester City School District’s (case study) main goal is to teach students skills that they can use during their education, in their careers and beyond. Many students don’t have access to technology at home, so Rochester City School District is teaching them how to use technology. And since students need to know how to work with others regardless of the line of work they pursue, teachers are also helping students learn teamwork by assigning group projects aided by collaboration tools. For example, fifth grade students collaborated in person with their peers on a biome project and provided feedback to their teammates using the chat and commenting features in Google Docs.

Schools continue to provide students with innovative online learning resources that help students learn more and teachers personalize education. Check out the schools’ stories and register for the webinar with Amherst Schools happening today to learn more.

We’ve heard great stories from many of you about how you’re using technology to do amazing things in your schools, so were going across the U.S. to see for ourselves! Check out the map below to see where we’ve been. We’d love to hear what’s happening in your state, so please share your story on Twitter or Google+ and tag us (@GoogleForEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag.

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The new Training Center professional development by and for educators

Posted by Liz Anderson, Global Lead of Adoption Programs, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editors note: Twenty thousand educators from around the world will share ideas, tips, and trends for the upcoming year when they gather at ISTE, one of the largest education technology conferences in the world. If you’ll be in Philadelphia, come visit us in the Expo Hall at #1808. You can learn more about the new Training Center and check out any of over 50 short sessions that will share more ways to engage and inspire students.

Technology can transform education, but only when it enables and supports amazing educators. Effective professional development is thus a crucial part of creating real positive change and preparing students for the future. For this reason, we’re proud to introduce the new Google for Education Training Center, a free, interactive, online platform that helps educators apply Google’s tools in the classroom and beyond.

Professional development has long been a challenge for educators and administrators. A 2015 survey by the American Federation of Teachers found that the "adoption of new initiatives without proper training or professional development" was the primary reason for workplace stress, with 71% of respondents citing it. This is why we worked closely alongside educators to design professional development tools that fit the needs of their peers.

“We didn’t need another help center with how-to articles; we needed to start where teachers start, with learning objectives, classroom tasks and teaching strategies,” said Jay Atwood, EdTech coordinator at Singapore American School and project lead for the Training Center’s lesson creation. “With the new Training Center, we do just that.”

The Training Center provides interactive lessons with a practical classroom focus, allowing educators and administrators to customize their learning paths by choosing fundamental or advanced courses. Each course is organized around three themes:

Educators can access different units and lessons in any order they prefer. After completing either the fundamentals or advanced course, educators can then distinguish themselves as Google Certified Educators, Level 1 or Level 2.

The lessons support different skill sets, grade levels, content specialties, capacities and interests. “I thought I was pretty knowledgeable about Google, but in each session I learned something new,” says Carla Jones, a teacher at Cook Elementary School in Chicago, IL who previewed the Training Center content. “I learned tips and strategies that I could immediately use in my classroom, and each session got me super excited about how to make my classroom more tech integrated.”

Chicago Public Schools (CPS), the third largest school district in the United States with more than 600 schools and 400,000 students, worked with Google for Education as a launch partner for the new Training Center. CPS will use the Training Center as an integral part of its technology professional development program, and teachers’ time spent on Training Center courses will count toward their professional development hours.

“The new Google for Education Training Center empowers teachers to drive their own learning and track their progress,” says Donna Román, EdTech instructional specialist at CPS. “It combines differentiated content, flexible pace and application with the collaborative magic of Google Apps for Education in a supportive learning environment.”

The Training Center reflects what we value most about education, focusing on the process of learning rather than the tools themselves. “The Training Center was carefully designed around good pedagogy and instructional practices,” explains Mark Hammons, EdTech coordinator at the Fresno County Office of Education and a contributor to the platform. “Not only will teachers learn how to use Google Apps, but they will also learn how to apply them meaningfully in the classroom.”

To learn more about the Training Center, visit g.co/edutrainingcenter and try out a lesson or two.

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Teaching teams New ways to work together in Classroom

Posted by Hugh Lynch, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

We built Classroom to help teachers spend less time on paperwork, and more time with their students. Since we launched, we’ve also heard from teachers and professors that they’d love to be able to use Classroom to collaborate with other educators.

Teach together: Whether it’s a substitute, a teacher’s aide or a department chair, almost every teacher and professor is supported by other educators. So starting today, you can have multiple teachers in a Classroom class. To try it out, just go to your class’s About page and click “Invite teacher.” Additional teachers can do almost everything the primary teacher can do: they can create assignments or announcements, view and grade student submissions, participate in the comments on the class “stream,” invite students and even get email notifications – everything except delete the class.

Dani Raskin, a special education teacher at Clarkstown High School South in New York, has been helping us test out this new feature. “It’s really important for me to be able to work closely with other teachers who also teach my students, but we don’t always have prep time together,” Dani said. “We are now able to split the workload: both of us can provide direct feedback via comments and grading. It really fosters an authentic sense of teamwork and collaboration."

Prep for your classes in advance: We know how much planning goes into every class you teach, and now we’re making it a little bit easier to do some of that planning in Classroom. You can save announcements and assignments as “drafts” and wait to send them to students until you’re ready. And similar to Gmail, any time you start creating a new announcement or assignment, it’ll be automatically saved as a draft. This works with multiple teachers as well, so all the teachers in a class can collaboratively prep assignments in advance, and even make changes to each other’s posts on the fly.

We’re also making some other updates you’ve told us will make Classroom easier to use:

• Autosaved grades: If you can’t get all of your assignments graded in one session, but still want to return them to students at the same time, grades will now be auto saved as you enter them. You can choose when to return them to students.
• Better notifications: Teachers and students will now receive email notifications when a private comment is left on an assignment. 

For schools here in North America and in Europe, we know you’re working hard as you round the corner into the end of the year. We are, too, and we’ll have more Classroom news for you before school’s out for summer.

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New features in Admin SDK Custom user attributes and opening up access to all domain users

By Muzammil Esmail, Product Manager, Google for Work

The Admin SDK provides a comprehensive directory experience for Google for Work customers to help them meet specific business needs around data storage for customers. Here are some important updates to this SDK.

Custom attributes in the user’s profile

Now available is a new feature in the Directory API which allows you to add custom attributes for your users. For instance, you could store the projects your users work on, their desk number, job level, hiring date — whatever makes sense for your business.

Once the custom attributes for your domain have been defined, they behave just like regular fields in the user profile. You can get and set them for your users and also perform searches on custom fields (e.g. “all employees that work on the shinyNewApp in Hyderabad”).

Custom attributes can be of different data types; they can be single- or multi-valued. You can configure whether they are “public” i.e. visible to everyone on the domain, or “private” i.e. visible only to admins and the users themselves.

Read access to all domain users

Historically, only admins have been able to access the data in the Admin SDK. Beginning today, any user (not just admins) will now be able to call the Directory API to read the profile of any user on the domain (of course, we will respect ACLing settings and profile sharing settings).

We hope that you will be able to use this new feature to build business applications (e.g. corporate yellow pages, expense approval, vacation management, workflow applications, etc.) that can be used by all your users.

Please feel free to go through our documentation to go learn more about the Admin SDK, and specifically the Directory API. Happy hacking!

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Florida schools share their tips for introducing new learning technology

Posted by John Allen and David Harrington, Google for Education team

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editors note: Schools across Florida are seeing great success with Google for Education. Today we’re featuring tips from School District of Lee County, Okeechobee County School District and Escambia County School District. To learn more, watch this recent webinar with Lee County. And if you’ll be at FETC from January 12-15, visit us in the Expo Hall at #2221.

The state of Florida is leading the way for digital instruction. A recent state mandate requires that K-12 students have access to digital learning resources. The shift from paper-based to digital content is prompting students to research and publish their work online while encouraging teachers to innovate in the classroom. We recently asked instructional technology administrators in Florida who use Google Apps for Education, Google Classroom and Chromebooks to share their recommendations for introducing new technologies and tools in the classroom. Here are their top five tips:

1. Create an IT support community 

Providing IT support across campuses can be a drain on resources, so instead of hiring a huge IT team, ask tech-savvy teachers to serve as resources for technology questions. They need not be experts, but rather can act as liaisons to direct teachers and students to the right channels and communicate with the IT team about any overarching challenges.

The School District of Lee County (case study) uses this model to streamline IT support and strengthen its community. “The small group of teachers act as on-the-ground support,” says Dwayne Alton, director of IT support. “They facilitate conversations and figure out what tech matches the students’ and teachers’ needs.”

2. Encourage teachers to share their success stories 

Tech-savvy teachers often find innovative ways to incorporate new technologies in the classroom, and can be great advocates for helping other teachers identify new ways of teaching. Ask teachers to share the unique ways they’re using new tools. For example, Scott Rust, a high school english teacher at Escambia County School District, keeps students attentive and on task when he’s taking attendance by having them fill out five questions in Google Forms. “All of my students participated in the assignment, were engaged and well behaved,” Rust says. “It was amazing to start class on such a positive note — and as a side benefit, all of the students’ answers from Google Forms downloaded into a single spreadsheet.”

7th grade students at Caloosa Middle school in Lee County collaborating in Google Docs

3. Make professional development flexible 

Some teachers will be excited to have new teaching tools, but others may prefer to use the whiteboard or pen and paper. Provide teachers with a variety of opportunities to learn how to use technology to improve their teaching, boost productivity and make learning more interactive.

Okeechobee County School District hosts C@mp IT, a two-day professional development summit with workshops about how to use devices in the classroom. If your schools don’t have the resources or time for a summer summit, consider after-school training sessions or online video training.

4. Consider how technology can improve state-wide testing 

Technology can ease some of the hassle of student testing. When Okeechobee County School District used laptops and PCs for the Florida Standards Assessment testing, the IT team had to prep the devices and make sure no applications ran in the background. Chromebooks streamlined the testing process, as the IT team only had to switch the devices to kiosk mode.

Similarly, Escambia County School District uses Chromebooks for testing to reduce the administrative burden. Says Jim Branton, coordinator of technology services at Escambia County School District: “The ability to test a grade level all at the same time without scavenging computers from all over campus into makeshift labs made scheduling and administering the tests significantly easier than years past.”

Introducing new technology reduces the amount of time spent on testing, some schools have found. “In our two 1:1 middle schools, it would take two weeks to get all the students through testing. Now with Chromebooks, it should take less than a week,” says Shawna May, director of information technology at Okeechobee County School District. “That’s less time taken away from instructional class time.”

5. Share a resource hub with how-to resources 

Some teachers spend a good chunk of class time teaching students how to use technology most effectively in their studies, rather than teaching them class material. Create a resource hub so teachers have an easy place to find resources, including video tutorials and how-to documents, that they can use to teach students how to use devices and digital learning tools. “Teachers can send students a 3-minute video about how to turn in a Google Doc using Google Classroom, so they don’t have to use valuable class time showing students how to use the tools,” suggests Michelle Branham, coordinator of instructional technology at Okeechobee County School District.

We’ve heard great stories from many of you about how you’re using technology to do amazing things in your schools, so were going across the U.S. to see for ourselves! Check out the map below to see where we’ve been. We’d love to hear what’s happening in your state, so please share your story on Twitter or Google+ and tag us (@GoogleForEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag.

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Introducing new Chromebooks and features engineered for work

Posted by Saswat Panigrahi and Raghu Yarlagadda, Product Managers, Chromebooks for Work

Editors note: To learn more about the new features that make Chromebooks ready for work, join our Chrome product team for a Hangout on Air on Tuesday, September 1st at 10AM PT. 

Today, Chromebooks are putting on their power suit. Customers like Netflix, Sanmina and Starbucks have adopted Chromebooks for their ease of deployment, security and ability to integrate well with existing technologies, and a recent IDC study of Chromebooks use in K-12 education shows that Chromebooks require 69% less labor to install and 92% less labor to support than other devices. And with today’s announcements, the Chromebook family gets even bigger and better:

Work-ready devices: Today, the new Dell Chromebook 13 joins the Asus Chromebook Flip and Chromebook Pixel in the Chromebook for Work lineup. Built with a lightweight carbon fiber cover, the laptop comes with a 13.3” FHD IPS touchscreen display, 5th Gen Intel® Core™ processor, magnesium alloy palmrest, backlit keyboard and high-precision glass trackpad. And if you’re often on the road or rushing between meetings, you’ll have the machine power to keep moving, thanks to a 12-hour battery life. Starting at $399 and available for purchase starting September 17th, the Chromebook 13 brings enterprise class performance at an economical price point.

Plays well with others: Using Microsoft infrastructure? No problem. Single sign-on and support for legacy apps mean Chromebooks can now plug right in with VMWare, Dell vWorkspace, or Citrix’s improved Chrome receiver. Connecting to your files is even easier with Windows File Shares (SMB/CIFS), Box, Dropbox, or OneDrive. Need to print? Printing to local printers with Cloud Print 2.0 or to any existing printer using the improved Cloud Print CUPS connector is simple. With the help of a new API, HP supports over 100m+ printers with the HP Print for Chrome app. And connecting just got more seamless –VPN support from Pulse Secure and Dell SonicWall join Cisco AnyConnect on the Chrome Web Store (F5 Networks and Palo Alto Networks coming soon).

Manage from the beach: Chesterfield School District deployed 14,000 Dell devices in just a few weeks, and manages almost 32,000 devices today. What’s their secret? The Chrome Device Management console, a cloud based management solution with 200+ features that integrates Chrome devices with your infrastructure and helps manage thousands of devices with ease – from users to networks to applications. Weve made enhancements such as domain autocomplete and asset management, making users and IT admins lives easier.

With so many businesses undergoing transformation, shifting to the cloud and rethinking how mobile and devices play into this transformation, Chrome authorized resellers and SYNNEX corporation are ready to help you.

Check out our webpage or join us on Tuesday September 1st at 10AM PST for a Hangout on Air to learn more about Chromebooks for Work.

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A new kind of Classroom for 10 million students and teachers

Posted by Cinthya Mohr, User Experience Lead, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

In a junior high class in Queens, New York, Ross Berman is teaching fractions. He wants to know whether his students are getting the key concept, so he posts a question in Google Classroom and instantly reviews their answers. It’s his favorite way to check for understanding before anyone has the chance to fall behind.

Across the country, in Bakersfield, California, Terri Parker Rodman is waiting at the dentist’s office. She wonders how her class is doing with their sub. With a few swipes on her phone, she finds out which students have finished their in-class assignment and sends a gentle reminder to those who haven’t.

Google Classroom launched last August, and now more than 10 million educators and students across the globe actively use it to teach and learn together, save time, and stay organized. We worked with teachers and students to create Classroom because they told us they needed a mission control – a central place for creating and tracking assignments, sharing ideas and resources, turning in completed work and exchanging feedback. Classroom is part of Google’s lineup of tools for education, which also includes the Google Apps for Education suite – now used by more than 50 million students, teachers and administrators around the world – and Chromebooks, the best-selling device in U.S. K-12 schools.

Here are a few of the stories we’ve heard from teachers and students who are using Classroom.

Learning better together 

We built Classroom to help educators spend less time on paperwork and administrative tasks. But it’s also proven to be highly effective at bringing students and teachers closer together. In London, fifth grader Kamal Nsudoh-Parish stays connected with his Spanish teacher while he does his homework. “If I don’t understand something, I can ask him and he’d be able to answer rather than having to wait until my next Spanish lesson,” Kamal says.

Terri, who teaches sixth grade at Old River Elementary School, also observes that Classroom can strengthen ties and improve communication. “When a student doesnt turn something in, I can see how close they are,” she says. “In the past, I couldnt tell why they didnt finish their work. I was grading them on bringing back a piece of paper instead of what their ability was.”

Resource room teacher Diane Basanese of Black River Middle School in Chester, New Jersey, says that Classroom lets her see her students’ minds at work. “I’m in the moment with them,” she explains. “We have dialogue, like, ‘Oh, are you saying I should use a transition?’ We’re talking to each other. It’s a better way.”

Removing the mundane 

By helping them cut down on busywork, Classroom empowers teachers to do even more with every school day. “I no longer waste time figuring out paper jams at the school photocopier,” says Tom Mullaney, who teaches in Efland, North Carolina. “Absent students no longer email or ask, ‘What did we do yesterday?’ These time savers may not sound like much, but they free me to spend time on things that I consider transcendent in my teaching practice.”

In Mexico City, teachers at Tec de Monterrey high school and university switched to Classroom from an online learning management system that often added complexity to their workflow instead of simplifying it. Professor Vicente Cubells says he’s found the new question feature in Classroom particularly useful for short quizzes, because he can quickly assess learning and have an automatic record of their responses and grades. “The Classroom mobile apps have also become essential for our faculty and students, we use them to stay connected even when we’re not in front of a laptop,” Cubells said.

Giving teachers superpowers 

Teachers are some of the most innovative thinkers in the world, so it’s no surprise that they’ve used Classroom in ways we never even imagined.

Elementary school teacher Christopher Conant of Boise, Idaho, says his students are usually eager to leave school behind during summer break. But after using Classroom last year, they wanted to keep their class open as a way to stay in touch. “Classroom is a tool that keeps kids connected and learning as a community, well beyond the school day, school year and school walls,” said Christopher, who continued to post videos and questions for his students all summer long.

These endless possibilities are the reason why Diane Basanese, a 30-year teaching veteran, says that Classroom is the tool she’s been looking for throughout her career. “It has made me hungrier,” she explains. “I look at how I can make every lesson a hit-it-out-of-the-ballpark lesson.”

Growing our Classroom 

Ever since we began working with teachers and students, its been rewarding and encouraging to hear their stories, collaborate to find answers to their problems, and watch those solutions come to life at schools and universities around the world. Lucky for us, we’re just getting started.

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Let’s build a new work Inbox together

Posted by Alex Gawley, Director of Product Management, Gmail and Inbox by Gmail

Have you ever felt like your inbox was someone else’s to-do list? Requests, project updates and action items stream in all day. You move between your computer and the phone in your pocket to try to manage, and instead of focusing on the most important things, you find yourself focusing on the most recent things. No matter the device, email should feel like a time saver, but instead it feels like a chore.

This is why we created Inbox by Gmail, to help you focus on the things that matter to you. Since we launched five months ago, one of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve received is that Google Apps customers want access to Inbox at work. That’s why were excited to kick off the next phase of our journey: collaborating with you to bring Inbox to work.

Even before the first invitations went out to use Inbox for your own email, Googlers have been using it to get more done at work. Whether it’s snoozing the expense report notification until after the big presentation, or adding a reminder to schedule lunch with a favorite client, Inbox helps put email on your terms. And since Inbox was built on the same infrastructure as Gmail, it meets the same high security standards you expect from email.

Of course, every company and every person is different, so we want to get more input on how Inbox will work at your company. Starting next month, we’ll begin enabling Inbox for a small group of Google Apps customers to learn about their needs, challenges and use cases.

• Do you want to use Inbox as your primary email at work?
• Are employees at your company heavy mobile users?
• Most importantly, do you want to partner with Google on user studies to help build the new work Inbox?

If you answered “yes, yes and yes!” then email inboxforwork@google.com from your Google Apps for Work administrator account to apply for an invitation to the early adopter program. To start, we plan to work very closely with the early adopter companies, so not everyone that applies will be accepted right away, but the program will continue to expand over the coming months.

Inbox wasn’t created to reinvent email, Inbox was created to help you reinvent the way you get things done. This means we need to understand more about how things get done (or don’t) today. And with your feedback, who knows, we could reinvent the way people work.

Note: Only the Google Apps administrator can apply for entry to the Inbox for work early adopter program.

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New feature on xda developers XDA DevDB

Recently xda-developers presented new forum feature: Development Database, or DevDB for short.

Here is a short list of what is actually does:

• Download manager with an XDA torrent tracker
• ROMs can have multiple "contributors" who can make changes, add files, etc.
• Ability to tag ROMs (so they are searchable for users)
• Screenshot management
• Ability to reserve up to two posts in your ROM thread (below the first post)
• ROM reviews
• Q&A thread association
• Bug tracker / feature requester
• ROMs will be flashable directly from DevDB *coming soon*
• Users can "follow" a ROM and get auto-notified of updates

Of course its not only about ROMs. Any developer can add f.g. kernel project too.

What I find interesting so far is the possibilities to write a short reviews and follow the project. Everyone can also contribute by writing some idea for some new feature or submit a bug in a bug tracker.

If you have free 5 minutes (its how much it takes!) please take a look at this new system and follow my HTC One "project" under this link - follow project (if you are HTC One owner) and leave your review for my HTC One ROM under this link - write a short review.

The project is currently in beta stage, and number of supported devices is limited to:

Galaxy S II, III, and 4

HTC One

Sony Xperia Tablet Z

Sony Xperia Z

Droid DNA

Nexus 4, 10, 7

Galaxy Note II

Personally I think that DevDB is a great idea, however it surely needs some time before users and developers will get used to it.

Have any questions or comments? Feel free to share! Also, if you like this article, please use media sharing buttons (Twitter, G+, Facebook) down this post!

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Introducing gRPC a new open source HTTP 2 RPC Framework

Today, we are open sourcing gRPC, a brand new framework for handling remote procedure calls. It’s BSD licensed, based on the recently finalized HTTP/2 standard, and enables easy creation of highly performant, scalable APIs and microservices in many popular programming languages and platforms. Internally at Google, we are starting to use gRPC to expose most of our public services through gRPC endpoints as part of our long term commitment to HTTP/2.

Over the years, Google has developed underlying systems and technologies to support the largest ecosystem of micro-services in the world; our servers make tens of billions of calls per second within our global datacenters. At this scale, nanoseconds matter. Efficiency, scalability and reliability are at the core of building Google’s APIs.

gRPC is based on many years of experience in building distributed systems. With the new framework, we want to bring to the developer community a modern, bandwidth and CPU efficient, low latency way to create massively distributed systems that span data centers, as well as power mobile apps, real-time communications, IoT devices and APIs.

Building on HTTP/2 standards brings many capabilities such as bidirectional streaming, flow control, header compression, multiplexing requests over a single TCP connection and more. These features save battery life and data usage on mobile while speeding up services and web applications running in the cloud.

Developers can write more responsive real-time applications, which scale more easily and make the web more efficient. Read more about the features and benefits in the FAQ.

Alongside gRPC, we are releasing a new version of Protocol Buffers, a high performance, open source binary serialization protocol that allows easy definition of services and automatic generation of client libraries. Proto 3 adds new features, is easier to use compared to previous versions, adds support for more languages and provides canonical mapping of Proto to JSON.

The project has support for C, C++, Java, Go, Node.js, Python, and Ruby. Libraries for Objective-C, PHP and C# are in development. To start contributing, please fork the Github repositories and start submitting pull requests. Also, be sure to check out the documentation, join us on the mailing list, visit the IRC #grpc channel on Freenode and tag StackOverflow questions with the “grpc” tag.

Google has been working closely with Square and other organizations on the gRPC project. We’re all excited for the potential of this technology to improve the web and look forward to further developing the project in the open with the help, direction and contributions of the community.

Post by Mugur Marculescu, Product Manager

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New in Classroom saving time while grading

Posted by Anibal Chehayeb, Google Classroom Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

We built Classroom to save teachers time, and we know that grading is one of those tasks that can involve a lot of little time wasters. In fact, students have turned in more than 200 million assignments via Classroom to date, which adds up to a lot of grading hours. Today, we’re launching new features to help make grading a little faster and easier.

• Export Grades to Google Sheets: In addition to .csv files, you can now export your grades directly to Google Sheets. The Sheets template includes a class average and an average per student. If you have ideas about how we can make this export to Sheets even more useful, please leave us feedback by clicking the question mark at the bottom left of the Classroom page, then choosing “send feedback.” 
• Easier to update grade point scale: We know not all assignments are out of 100 points. Youve always been able to change the point value, but a lot of teachers had trouble finding this feature. So we’ve made it easier to change the grading scale to any number you need it to be. 
• Keyboard navigation for entering grades: When you’re entering lots of grades, you need a fast way to navigate from student to student. We’ve added the ability to use the up and down arrows to move directly from the grade entry area for one student to another. 
• Sort by name on grading page: In addition to sorting students by completion status (done, not done), you can now sort by first or last name. 
• And in case you missed it last month, you can now add a private comment for a student when you’re returning their work. 

In addition to these grading improvements, we’ve been hard at work on other updates. We’ve polished the look and feel of Classroom on the web with icons to help differentiate items in the stream and added a cleaner look for comments and replies. We’ve also recently updated our Android and iOS mobile apps, so they’ll now load even faster. You can post questions for students on the go, and Android teachers can reuse previous posts. Finally, you can now post a question from the Classroom Share Button, which you can find on some of your favorite educational websites.

We hope you’ll find these updates helpful, and you’ll get a chance to relax and refresh over the winter break (or summer, for our friends in the Southern Hemisphere). Look for more Classroom updates next semester.

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Introducing the new Calendar Resource API

Originally Posted on Google Apps Developers blog

Posted by Muzammil Esmail, Product Manager, Google for Work and Wesley Chun, Developer Advocate, Google Apps

Over the years, we’ve been updating our APIs with new versions across Drive and Calendar, as well as those used for managing Google Apps for Work domains. These new services offer developers improvements over previous functionality and introduces new features that help Apps administrators better manage their domains.

To deliver even more granular control, today we are announcing the new Calendar Resource API as part of the Admin SDK’s Directory API that enables Google for Work customers to manage their physical resources, like conference rooms, printers, nap pods, tennis courts, walkstations, etc. These physical resources can be added to meetings by end users as needed. The API released today replaces the GDATA Calendar Resource API, so we encourage developers to begin moving their applications and tools to the new API. Please note that we will begin deprecation in January 2016 and sunset the existing API in January 2017. Stay tuned for a formal deprecation announcement with details.

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How a culture of collaboration sparks new ideas Q A with PwC

Editors note: As we ramp up for Atmosphere15, we’re sharing a few sneak peeks from some of the disruptors joining us as speakers. Today, we speak with Deborah Bothun, US Entertainment, Media and Communications Leader for PwC. Register here for the June 2nd (in North and South America and Europe) and 3rd (in Asia Pacific) event, where Deborah and leaders from Pierre Herme Paris and Waitrose share insights on inspiring productive teams. 

Innovation’s a buzzword today that means a lot of different things to different companies. Whats one essential element of innovation for your team?

In my role at PwC, I have the pleasure of launching numerous primary research studies each year. Consumers, who view organizations with both the employee and consumer lens, tell us that innovation and collaboration are the two most influential attributes affecting employee and consumer experiences. Consumers also tell us that the differentiator is the actual vision of what your company can accomplish as a result of innovation and collaboration. And interestingly enough, CEOs around the world are telling us the exact same thing. This year, 68% of the CEOs we surveyed said that collaboration is one of the top three ways to create value in an organization.

Last October, PwC announced adoption of Google for Work for 45,000 employees in the U.S. and Australia. What was the process for adopting Google Apps across the company?

Our people solve complex problems as advisors to our clients, so we leveraged problem solving to launch Google Apps. As part of our launch plan, we developed a series of innovation workshops. where we tasked teams with solving real business challenges using the tools in the Apps suite. They were asked to create new ways to save time and add efficiency to current processes. And we discovered that better tools for collaboration did indeed help teams to be more creative and inspired. In fact, each workshop produced an average of 100-175 new ideas from the challenges.

How has using Google Apps affected the culture at PwC?

We all talk about collaboration, but it’s not easy to do. Everyone needs to get involved and leverage Google Apps to make the cultural shift towards collaboration. By giving our teams the tools to collaborate, we’re helping them to create and compete in news ways.

Join Deborah and leaders from Pierre Herme Paris and Waitrose in more discussion on collaboration and productive teams at Atmosphere, on June 2nd (in North and South America and Europe) and June 3rd (in Asia Pacific). Register here.

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Lenovo Idea Tab A1000 New product

Lenovo Idea Tab.
with SIM Card slot.

 

Lenovo Idea Tab..

RM499.

Original By Lenovo

Waranty 1 years.

Call / SMS / WhatsApp - 019 3883 320

Tab with SIM card.

Boleh buat CALL / SMS / internet..

 600 x 1024 pixels, 7.0 inches (~170 ppi pixel density)

Mencari Tablet 7 inch yang boleh buat Call / SMS dgn harga yg murah serta berkualiti.

Ini lah jawapan nya Lenovo Idea Tab.

Harga hanya RM499 sahaja - TERMURAH DARI Tablets yang berjenama.

Penghantaran ke seluruh Malaysia..Tambahan kos pos bagi Sabah dan Serawak.

 

The 7 inch, 1280*600px, tablet is a budget tablet powered by 1.2 GHz dual-core MediaTek MTK8317 processor, 1GB RAM, 4GB ROM, integrated graphics card and runs on Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean).
 The Lenovo A1000 comes with SIM support for Voice Calling - enabling you to use it like a tablet or a regular phone. The tablet is 10.7mm thin and only weighs 340g making the Lenovo A1000 tablet a perfect size for reading, listening to music, and web-surfing. The 3500mAH battery offers up to 8 hours of WiFi browsing on a single battery charge. The A1000 also sports Dual stereo speakers spaced apart for better stereo effects with Dolby® audio enhancement allows louder, more natural, distortion-free sound , enhanced audio experience for all multimedia including video, games and music.
 There is also USB OTG (On The Go) allowing the tablet to charge and read other devices.
There is also a front 0.3MP camera for video chat. So if you are in the hunt for a cheap tablet the A1000 comes highly recommended over other budget tablets currently in the market.

Warranty 1 year by Lenovo.

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New Widgets of leaked version of Nokia Belle RC v111 040 0704

CFW for N8 by Taylor based on leaked version of Nokia Belle RC v111.040.0704 featuring some new widgets and Music Player. Modders have now succeeded in extracting the new Music Player and Widgets – Notes, Text Clock, Flip Clock from the leaked Nokia Belle RC. 

Nokia Belle RC v111.040.0704

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Youtube adds new features Old vs New embedded video Player

May be you might not notice but YouTube has recently updated its embedded video players and added a few minor features. Below are the new supported features-

• The new YouTube videos are now blatantly supporting keyboard shortcuts:
• Space bar to pause the video and then resume it
• Right arrow to fast forward
• Left arrow to rewind/replay the video
• and the up/down arrows to adjust volume.

The overlayed YouTube logo from the old video player was also moved to the lower right corner of the player to replace the Menu button with essentially unchanged features (shows related videos and embed code when clicked).

May be these functionalities not affect you but it’ll used for branding purpose as well.

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Apple Releases iOS 7 beta 4 to Developers With New Added Features

Apple have released iOS 7 beta 4 today to its developers.  Although the release should have come before now but perhaps due to the recent security breach in Apples Developers website the beta 4 took this long.

As always iOS 7 beta 4 can be downloaded directly to your phone by going to the Software Updates section on your phone via Settings menu.

 

New features and enhancements have been added to those previously seen in beta 3. These new features and enhancements should make iOS 7 even more desirable. 

Below is the list of newly added features/enhancements.

1 Lock screen UI tweaked, no longer has confusing up arrow. 

2. Call button in phone app, Answer/Decline buttons refreshed.

3. Animations are noticeably faster
 

4. Minor changes to Spotlight UI

5. New ‘completed uploads’ option in Notification Center.

6. In Messages, it now only shows the first letter of the last name of the person you’re chatting with.

7. HDR On/Off button relocated in Camera app.

8. You can now swipe between Today-All-Missed views in Notification Center.

9. New AirPlay icons Shuffle All Songs option is back in Music app.

10. New search bar in Reminders app.

11. Improved navigation in Settings app.

12. Apple now asks if you want to “Help Improve Maps” when you first launch Maps app.

13. New “Improve Maps” opt-in program in Privacy section of Settings.

14. Tweaked Maps.app icons.

15. Saved Password for Safari now asks you to setup an on-device password.

16. Pin in Maps app now shows estimated driving time to location.

17. New ‘Dial Assist’ feature in Phone app

18. Filters now available in Camera app for iPhone 4S (iPhone 4?)

19. New Q&A section in Siri’s info sheet

Also, this new beta version makes it clear that iPhone 5S would have a finger print sensor. This deduction was made after seeing the biometric source code like the one shown below.

Things are getting pretty interesting and Apple seem to be making good progress in making sure that the next iPhone with improved camera, processor and finger print sensor, become  a smash and the best iPhone yet. 

Follow us on Twitter and Like us on Facebook for prompt info.

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