Back to School

Guide 2021
Table of contents:

01. Acknowledgements

02. Overview

03. Back-to-School Tips

I. Tools to enhance teaching and learning
A. Collaboration
B. Student engagement
C. Class management
D. Internet connectivity

II. Support your school’s students and families beyond the curriculum
A. Social and emotional learning
B. Supporting all types of learners
C. Guardians
D. Digital citizenship

III. Google’s commitment to data privacy and security

A. Online safety
B. Data protection
C. Admin controls for safer learning

IV. Prepare your Google for Education products for the new school year
A. Back-to-school checklist

04. Additional resources

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 Acknowledgements
Thank you to all the educators who helped us
develop this guide. And a special thanks to Chin
Song, Ron Carroll, Mark Garrison, Femi Aina, and
Ruth Yeh for their guidance and time.

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Overview

Equipping your district, educators, students, and families with

the resources they need to go back to school with confidence
can be daunting. Google for Education is always working to
make digital tools easier to use and more helpful for everyone.

We want to help your school community get the most out of

your Google for Education tools. Use this guide for tips on how
to use our most popular tools – like Google Classroom, Google
Meet, Google Forms, and Chromebooks – to help educators
engage, connect, and collaborate with their classes, keep
guardians involved and informed, stay up to date on the latest
admin settings, and ensure a secure learning environment.

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Back-to-School Tips

Support your school’s

Tools to enhance
students and families
teaching and learning
beyond the curriculum

i. Collaboration i. Social and emotional learning

ii. Student engagement ii. Supporting all types of learners

iii. Class management iii. Guardians

iv. Internet connectivity iv. Digital citizenship

Prepare your Google for

Google’s commitment to
Education products for
data privacy and security
the new school year

i. Online safety i. Back-to-school checklist

ii. Data protection

iii. Admin controls for safer learning

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Tools to enhance teaching and learning

Collaboration

Q: What Google tools should I consider using to promote

collaboration, in person or from home?

A: Our tools are built with collaboration in mind. Here’s some ways to get started:
● Make class more fun and interactive with Jamboard, a virtual whiteboard, where
students can use virtual sticky notes, upload images, and annotate at the same
time on devices like Chromebooks. Try Jamboard in the app or in Google Meet.

● Use interactive checklists and smart chips in Docs to help teachers organize
tasks for school events like graduation, or to help students stay on track with
larger projects. Tag people and assign tasks and dates, easily embed Drive files,
mark items as complete and more. See how it looks in action.
● Embed live Meet video calls in Docs, Sheets, and Slides to make working
together easier. Students can ask questions and share ideas over Meet as they
complete an in-class exercise. This feature will be available for Education Plus
users, coming soon.
● Search for “collaboration” in the Chromebook App Hub for apps that bring
students together- and work seamlessly with Chromebooks.

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Tools to enhance teaching and learning

Student engagement

Q: What Google for Education tools should I consider using to increase

student engagement?

A: Here are some of our favorite tools to help keep students interested:
● Share touch-optimized apps that inspire learning – try Canva for Education and Adobe
Spark in the Chromebook App Hub.

● Embed YouTube videos right within Classroom, Slides, and Forms to help bring lectures
to life for all students. Learn how
● Utilize Meet in and out of the classroom. Invite guest speakers or expose students to a
new world with virtual field trips. Within Meet, encourage participation with emoji
reactions (coming soon) and hand raising – when students finish talking, their hand is
automatically lowered. And use the Q&A feature to let students ask and upvote
questions, and get instant feedback with Polls (for users with the Teaching and Learning
Upgrade or Education Plus edition). Check out our one-pager for more ways to enrich
learning experiences with Meet.
● Use Chromebook touchscreens or with styluses to support varied learning styles and
encourage student creativity in class.
● Keep tabs on student engagement with the new Activity tab in Classroom, coming soon.
See when a student last submitted work or participated in the class through comments,
and use these insights to provide extra assistance to students who need it most.
● Coming soon, access interactive tools like Kahoot! and Nearpod in Classroom – no
additional sign-ins required. With Classroom add-ons, students can complete assigned
activities and teachers can comment on student work – and grades pass back to
Classroom’s grade book. Admins can pre-install Classroom add-ons for their entire
domain or specific groups. Try it out in beta later this year for users with the Teaching
and Learning Upgrade or Education Plus and see an example of how it looks in action.

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Tools to enhance teaching and learning

Class management

Q: How can I make class management easier with Google for

Education products?

A: Here are some tips to help automate administrative tasks and simplify class
management:
● Enable roster import to automatically set up classes and keep Classroom rosters
in sync with your student information system (SIS). Available for districts with
Education Plus.

● Save time by posting the same assignment to multiple classes at once in

Classroom - and, coming later this year, schedule assignments in advance for
multiple classes.
● Manage classes on the go with even more functionalities in the Classroom
Android app - switch between student submissions, grade while viewing an
assignment, and share feedback. Learn more in our Classroom mobile app FAQ.
● Keep students on track with to-do lists personalized for each student in
Classroom, automatically. And help students plan ahead with assignment due
dates that automatically appear in their Google Calendars when the assignments
are shared.
● Create and grade quizzes using Forms on its own or by creating a quiz
assignment in Classroom. Draft responses auto-save for up to 30 days, so
students won’t lose their work if they get interrupted. Find more ways to save
time using Forms.

● Manage and deploy Chromebooks at scale easily using zero-touch enrollment.

Access over 500 Chrome policies in Google Admin Console available with the
Chrome Education Upgrade.

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Tools to enhance teaching and learning

Internet connectivity

Q: How do I ensure my school community can keep learning going

without a steady internet connection?

A: Help keep education going, even with unreliable bandwidth.

Here’s how:
● Avoid interruptions by setting up Drive for desktop so students can view, create
and edit Docs, Sheets and Slides — even in a sudden power outage. Admins can
also enable Gmail offline settings so users can always check messages and draft
responses.
● Stay connected with Meet without a strong internet connection. Our upcoming
features optimize streaming for high-quality video calls even with low bandwidth
and automatically limit data usage on mobile networks.
● Use the Classroom Android mobile app in offline mode. Open Drive attachments,
start work, review assignments and attachments, and write assignments in Docs –
all without an internet connection. Available in the coming weeks.
● Encourage students with Chromebooks to use “runs offline” extensions in the
Chrome Web Store for long periods of internet unavailability. Admins can push
out the extensions to all Google Workspace and Chromebook users. Check out
teacher tips and more ideas.

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Support your school’s students and families beyond the curriculum

Social and emotional learning

Q: How can I use Google for Education tools to support students’

social and emotional learning?

A: Understand and track student well-being with the tools you already use.
To start, try to:
● Reach out to students with an emotional-health questionnaire using Forms.
Keep the question list short with a few high-level questions: How do you feel
today? Why do you feel this way? What is your goal for today? Even use images or
multiple choice to make it super fast and simple to answer.
● Send wellness reminders to students with announcements in Classroom like “Take
a quick movement break!” or share a mindfulness activity from YouTube.
● Integrate Chromebook apps made to help support social and emotional learning
into regular class time. Try using ClassDojo, Classcraft, and custom Pear deck
slides to get started.
● Learn even more ways Google tools can be used to support students’ emotional
well-being.

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Support your school’s students and families beyond the curriculum

Supporting all types of learners

Q: How can I support all types of learners with Google for Education products?

A: We're passionate about building tools that make teaching and learning work for everyone. Get
started with Google Workspace for Education and Chromebooks.
Visit our Guide for Children with Disabilities and our accessibility website for step-by-step how-tos
on all of our features. Try to:
● Help students with visual impairments using Chromebook’s browser zoom and full screen
magnifier. Magnification support is also available in Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Or, try
ChromeVox, the Chromebook screen reader and enable high contrast mode and night light to
help with eye strain.
● Assist children who are deaf or hard of hearing by enabling mono audio so that the same
audio plays through both speakers. Teachers can turn on automatic closed captions in Slides
when presenting, and students can add captions to audio and video files in Drive and
customize closed captions by font, size, color and more. And try pinning multiple tiles in Meet
to see a teacher and a sign language interpreter at the same time, available soon.
● Support students with dyslexia using Select-to-speak mode and enable a student to speak to
enter text with Dictation mode. Also, enable Docs spelling and grammar suggestions.
● Empower students with limited motor skills using Tap to Click and Automatic clicks on
Chromebooks. Try an on-screen keyboard with handwriting mode and use Docs Voice Typing
for longer assignments.
● Set up accounts in Classroom to make sure individualized education plans (IEPs) are being
met and assign material to specific student groups that need differentiated coursework.

For more information on how to support everyone in the classroom, visit:

● Guardian's Guide to Accessibility

● Google for Education Accessibility Resource Center

● Google Workspace Admin Guide on Accessibility

● Google Workspace for Education accessibility features by product

● Chromebook accessibility video series

● Google Workspace and Chromebook accessibility training

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Support your school’s students and families beyond the curriculum

Guardians

Q: How can I help guardians stay more connected and involved in their
children’s education?

A: Our tools can help keep communication going and empower guardians to stay up to date
on their students’ progress. Get started:
● Help parents understand the technology students use in class with the Tech Toolkit for
Families and Guardians Video Series.

● Set up weekly automatic guardian summary notifications in Classroom. Emails recap

student performance, new assignments, approaching deadlines and missing work.
● Empower educators to hold virtual parent-teacher conferences and set up check-ins on
student progress with Meet. And, connect with more families at once by livestreaming an
assembly or town hall to any domain, coming soon to Teaching and Learning Upgrade and
Education Plus editions.
● Communicate with guardians who speak a different language with live translated
captions, available from English to multiple languages in the Teaching and Learning
Upgrade and Education Plus editions soon.
● For guardians of younger students who need help logging into virtual classrooms, we’ve
made it easier to join. Access Google Meet through a direct link, a chat or email invitation,
Classroom, or a class meeting nickname that stays the same the entire school year.

For more resources, check out:

● Google Families

● Guardian’s Guides to Google for Education Tools

● Chromebook App Hub

● Edu OnAir: Supporting Families With Distance Learning

● Enabling Distance Learning through Google Workspace & Chromebooks

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Support your school’s students and families beyond the curriculum

Digital citizenship

Q: How can I promote online safety best practices among students,

guardians, and educators?

A: Google works directly with experts and education leaders to develop resources for
teaching digital safety and creating healthy online habits. Consider sharing these
resources with teachers and families to promote safer digital habits in your students.

Educator resources:

● Digital citizenship course designed for students and teachers

● Be Internet Awesome free curriculum guide with interactive printable activities
for the fundamentals of navigating the online world
● Interland interactive digital safety game
● Google Search lesson plans and activities
● Applied digital skills lesson plans

Guardians resources:
● Google Families resource hub to help raise digitally responsible kids
● Family Safety Center for safer experiences online
● Family Link for setting digital ground rules
● Chromebook Help Center for managing children's experiences
● Digital Wellbeing Family Guide resource hub for quality content

● Be Internet Awesome Family Guide for online safety tips

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Google’s commitment to data privacy and security

Online safety

Q: How do Google Workspace for Education Core Services help

protect students and teachers online?

A: We design products to put the safety, security and privacy needs of our users first.
This means keeping schools’ data safer with built-in security features that provide
automated protection, compliance, visibility, and control, to ensure a private, safe,
and secure learning environment.

Everything we build is guided by three important principles:

1. Secure by default:
Protecting your privacy starts with the world’s most advanced security. Even
before you set up security controls for your school’s digital environment specific
to your needs, our built-in security is automatically protecting you from threats
like ransomware.
2. Private by design:
We uphold responsible data practices designed to respect your privacy. Our
Google Workspace for Education Core Services can be used in compliance with
the most rigorous data privacy standards, including FERPA, COPPA, and GDPR.
Google does not use data from Google Workspace for Education Core Services
for advertising purposes, and users’ personal information is never sold.
3. You’re in control:
You own your data in Core Workspace Services, which means that you retain full
intellectual property rights over your customer data, and you control who can
download it, and when. Get real-time alerts so you can act immediately if an
incident occurs, and customize the security dashboard to get reports on your
security status at any time.

We’re adding additional features to provide more visibility and control. And, our
privacy notice makes it easier for teachers, guardians, and students to understand
what information we collect and why we collect it. Nothing is changing about how
your information is processed. Rather, we’ve improved the way we describe our
practices and privacy controls with a simpler structure and clearer language.

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Google’s commitment to data privacy and security

Data protection

Q: How can I answer school community concerns over students’ data

when using Google for Education products?

A: Providing school communities with safe digital learning environments is

foundational to Google Workspace for Education. Our products are secure by design,
private by default, and we make it easy for admins to manage security, with new
controls for students under 18.

More on Google’s commitment to privacy and security:

● Safer learning with Google for Education one-pager

● Google Workspace Security Checklist
● Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice
● Guardian’s Guide to Privacy & Security
● Tech Toolkit for Families and Guardians: Security

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Google’s commitment to data privacy and security

Admin controls for safer learning

Q: What settings and controls does Google Workspace for Education provide to
help protect students online?

A: Our tools give admins control of school data and visibility into threats with security settings
and real-time alerts all in one place in the security center. Now, we’ve added even more updates
made for safer learning.
● Tailor experiences for users based on age when using Google services like YouTube, Photos
and Maps with a new age-based access setting.

● Gain more control over the YouTube experience for students younger than 18 by preventing
them from creating YouTube content, engaging in comments and live chats, and purchasing
items in YouTube - by default. Admins can turn the YouTube service “off” for students and
“on” for staff (learn how). Additionally, students designated as under the age of 18 with
YouTube turned “on” will have a more limited experience (learn more). Teachers with YouTube
turned “on” can embed their favorite YouTube videos into Classroom, Slides, and Docs.
● Ensure safer web browsing with updated settings for SafeSearch, Guest Mode, and Incognito
Mode. Now, SafeSearch technology will be enabled by default, and Guest Mode and Incognito
Mode will be off by default. Admins can still change each of these policies on Chrome OS for
individual organization units, for example allowing the use of Guest Mode for users in their
domain. Customize settings in the Admin console.
● Protect virtual classrooms using Meet’s new admin controls to determine which meetings
in-domain users can join. We encrypt data by default, offer unique meeting IDs, and prevent
students from joining completed class Meet links. Coming soon, turn off everyone’s video and
chat at the same time to reduce class distractions. And, admins with Education Standard and
Education Plus will soon be able to end any meeting in their organization directly from the
investigation tool. Finally, for Education Plus users, admins can sync rosters from their SIS
directly to Classroom so that students can only join their unique class Meet link.

● Use additional features to help prevent malware and phishing threats with Security Sandbox
and the Security Center. Now in beta, Drive labels allows admins to classify files stored in
Drive to make sure they’re handled correctly. Additionally, new Drive trust rules will give
admins more advanced controls around how files can be shared within and outside of their
organization. Admins with Education Plus and Education Standard can Sign up for the beta for
early access.

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Prepare your Google for Education products for the new school year

Back-to-school checklist

Q: What should I keep in mind when preparing my school’s Google Workspace for
Education tools ahead of the school year?

A: Here is a checklist specifically for admins to quickly ensure your Google Workspace for Education
products and services are ready to go for the new school year.

Admin back-to-school checklist:

❏ Covers, power adapters, and other device accessories are purchased
❏ Returned Chromebooks are inventoried, repaired, and sanitized
❏ Chrome devices are enrolled, updated, and patched and lost devices are wiped and
deprovisioned. Visit our Chrome Device Deployment Guide for step-by-step instructions
❏ Chromebooks have been set up for remote learning, if necessary. Learn how in Prepare
Chromebooks for distance learning at home
❏ Google admin console service configuration has been reviewed and updated if needed
❏ Google Workspace for Education profiles for new or incoming students and teachers have been
created and updated
❏ Google Workspace for Education permissions are assigned to students and teachers

❏ Age-based access settings for students have been reviewed and updated
❏ Google Meet access, feature, and permission settings have been reviewed in the Admin console
❏ Guardian email summaries are enabled within Classroom

❏ Family Link is enabled on students' Google Workspace for Education accounts so guardians can
stay in the loop on their children’s digital activity

❏ The Google Policy one-pager and Google’s commitment to privacy and security were shared
with my school community

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Additional Resources
Learn even more about how you can use Google for Education tools to
enhance education.
● Visit the Google for Education Blog for the latest on education news
and product updates
● Join us for the latest webinars and events
● Get Distance Learning Strategies for Education Leaders

Additional resources for admins:

● Google for Education Product Support resources
● Google Workspace for Education Quickstart IT Setup Guide
● Explore the Classroom Help Center and Help Forums for technical answers
● Help Center Guide for communicating with guardians

Additional resources for teachers:

● Google for Education resources to inspire creativity, encourage hands-on
learning, and equip your students with digital skills
● Free training courses and resources on digital citizenship, accessibility
tools, Google Workspace for Education
● Join our Educator Community to find a group near you

Additional resources for guardians:

● Guardian’s Guide to Google Workspace for Education
● Guides for Guardians of Children with Disabilities

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