Google did a thing today: A complete rebrand of G Suite to Google Workspace! Before we all start getting excited, nervous, or worried about what this means for your EDU G Suite environment, we want to let you know it won’t immediately impact the education space.
Although Google Workspace has officially launched, the changes announced only apply to business customers right now. There are a few differences to note between Google Workspace and G Suite for Education.
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Branding. The Google Workspace name will eventually make its way to the education space, but Google is not making any changes today. Google for Education will maintain its name and branding for the foreseeable future.
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Admin control of communication features. While the integrated communications features (e.g. the integrated view of Meet in Gmail) are available to G Suite for Education SKUs, they first need to be enabled by an Admin (by changing Chat service to “Chat preferred”).
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Pricing. The new editions and pricing of Google Workspace only apply to business customers. The new Google Workspace SKU and pricing options do not apply to G Suite for Education or G Suite Enterprise for Education users.
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Education specific features. G Suite for Education will continue to offer education-specific tools to address the unique needs of educators, such as Originality Reports, Assignments, and Google Classroom.
Education customers can continue to access Google tools via G Suite for Education, including Classroom, Assignments, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, and Meet. You can learn more in this Help Center article.
Looking ahead, the Google for Education team will be developing tools and features specifically designed with the needs of educators in mind. You may have seen some in the lineup of new features announced during back to school season, such as Google Classroom and Meet updates that will continue to roll out this fall. As always, your team at Amplified IT will continue to keep you up to date with the latest Google for Education changes.
Important additional Google for Education updates:
Google Meet configurations: Managing how students access virtual classes by utilizing Meet nicknames, avoiding collisions from duplicate Meet nicknames, and digging deeper upcoming Meet controls.
Meet and Google Classroom feature updates: (SIS) grade export, audit logs for Classroom and temporary recording and Jamboard integration for Meet are a few highlights coming.
Upcoming changes to Google Workspace for Education Plus: 50% discount and 3-year price lock expires October 31st. Visit the Education Plus page to learn more and request a quote.
Google Services Offer: Institutions who participated in the GSO have until November 30th to use their credits or they will lose their Google funds.
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Kristi Dazevedo
Marketing Manager -
About the Author:
Kristi lives in Virginia Beach and works at Amplified IT’s home office in Norfolk as Marketing Manager. Kristi joined the Amplified IT team in 2017 after 10 years of cultivating a diverse skill set in marketing and visual communications. She helped establish the Amplified IT Marketing department and spends her days working cross-functionally with all our teams to support the services and products that impact institutions across North America. When Kristi is not working, she is outside paddleboarding, running, or traveling.