Posted by Ego Obi, Global Lead of Access for Education in Emerging Markets

What if students and teachers from around the world could work on projects together in real-time without ever leaving their classrooms? Pope Francis recently joined students in Australia, Cameron, Israel, Turkey and South Africa for a Hangout on Air to celebrate the launch of Scholas―a new education initiative sponsored by the Vatican that aims to connect 500,000 schools across the world to enable e-learning and remote teaching using Google tools.


A social component of the platform uses Google Hangouts to connect students and teachers globally, so if students at a middle school in Ghana want to learn what it’s like to be a student their age in Peru, they can teach each other through an open and collaborative environment. Schools can also post shared projects on the platform, like the “40 Days of Hope” project by Seton Catholic High School, which aims to raise $3,000 to provide parasite medication and feed 40 people for a year in Nicaragua.

Later this year, Scholas will integrate more tools through Google Apps for Education and Classroom to create an even more personalized learning experience for each student. The Scholas platform aims to foster education through dialogue because when students can share and communicate openly, there’s no limit to what they can learn.

Posted by John Cox, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Google Research Blog)

Google is passionate about online education. In addition to our own Course Builder project, we’re also partners with edX, a not-for-profit that shares our desire for scalable, quality education for everyone. Their software, Open edX, lets people make educational content and deliver it online to anybody, anytime, anywhere. It powers their own site, edx.org, and is also used by companies and universities worldwide.

Today we’re very pleased to announce that you can now sign in to edx.org with your Google or Facebook account:

Until recently, users who wanted to take advantage of the high quality content on edx.org needed to create a new account first. This is a painful, error prone process―really, who wants to worry about yet another password? So we added the ability to use over 60 external authentication providers to Open edX, with support for everything from open standards like OpenID or OAuth 2.0, to custom university single sign-on systems. For their edx.org site, edX decided to let users pick between Google, Facebook, and a custom username and password.

If you run Open edX, you can also use this feature now. The authentication module is extensible so you can add any third-party provider you want if your favorite is not yet supported. And the feature is completely configurable, so you can pick whatever third-party authentication systems are best for your users, including none at all. It’s totally up to you.

By simultaneously increasing user choice, convenience, and security, we hope to make open online education even easier and safer to use, whether people pick Course Builder or Open edX for authoring and delivering courses. We’re very grateful to our partners at edX for working with us in this exciting field.

Posted by Lindsay Rumer, Chrome Marketing

(Cross-posted on the Google Students Blog.)

Chromebooks are college-bound this fall. Introducing the Chromebook Lending Library.

The Chromebook Lending Library is traveling to 12 college campuses across the U.S. loaded with the latest Chromebooks. The Lending Library is a bit like your traditional library, but instead of books, we're letting students borrow Chromebooks (no library card needed). Students can use a Chromebook during the week for life on campus— whether it’s in class, during an all-nighter, or browsing the internet in their dorm.

Chromebooks are a new type of computer that helps students get things done faster and easier. They have the battery life you need to study all night and are light enough to slip easily into a bag or backpack. With Google Maps, Drive, and Gmail, important information is stored in the cloud, so students no longer need to worry about losing documents, pics, music, and more. The days of losing a paper are over!

We hope you can swing by the Chromebook Lending Library for a little study break this fall. Check out chromebook.com/forcollege for all the details and spread the word with #ChromebookforCollege. And if the tour isn’t hitting your campus this fall, you can follow along on Twitter and Google+.

Posted by: Alan Warren, Vice President, Engineering

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog, Google Drive Blog and the Google for Work Blog.)

Imagine trying to keep track of another person’s real-time edits in a document—using only your ears. Or trying to create a table from spreadsheet data—without being able to clearly see the cells. Whether you’re backing up a file in Drive or crunching some numbers in Sheets, it should be easy to bring your ideas to life using Google’s tools. But if you’re blind or have low vision, you may need to rely on assistive technologies such as screen readers and Braille displays—and that can make working in the cloud challenging. While screen readers can parse static webpages (like this blog) relatively easily, it’s much harder for them to know what to say in interactive applications like Google Docs because the actions they need to describe are much more complex.

With these reasons in mind, today we’re announcing some improvements to Drive and all our editors—Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings, and Forms—specifically designed with blind and low-vision users in mind.
Improved screen reader support in Drive and Docs 
In June, we introduced a new version of Drive that’s sleeker, easier to navigate and much faster. But just as importantly, the new Drive also includes better keyboard accessibility, support for zoom and high-contrast mode and improved usability with screen readers.

Across Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drawings and Forms, you’ll find that it’s now much easier to use a screen reader, with nicer text-to-voice verbalization and improvements to keyboard navigation. You’ll also notice other updates, including:

• Support for alternative text on images in Docs, so you can tell a screen reader what they should say to describe an image 
• Better support for using a keyboard to edit charts and pivot tables in Sheets 
• Additional screen reader improvements specifically for Docs, Sheets and Slides, including support for spelling suggestions, comments and revision history 
• The ability to quickly search the menus and perform actions in Docs, Slides and Drawings (and soon Sheets and Forms)—even if you don’t know the action’s key sequence 
  

Collaborating with others is easier too: in Docs, Sheets, Slides or Drawings, screen readers announce when people enter or leave the document, and you’ll now also hear when others are editing alongside you.

Refreshable Braille display support 
If you use a Braille display, you can now use it to read and enter text in Docs, Slides and Drawings. With Braille support, your screen reader’s settings for character echoing are automatically followed. Braille also dramatically reduces the lag between when you press a key and when it’s announced by your screen reader, and improves the announcements of punctuation and whitespace. Learn how to enable Braille support in our Help Center.

Get up and going faster
The first time you use a screen reader or a Braille display, getting up to speed can be a daunting task. But it’s simpler with new step-by-step guides for Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms and Drawings.

You can also access the in-product “Help” menu at any time without interrupting your work, or use the updated shortcut help dialog to easily search through keyboard shortcuts if you don’t remember them.

Finally, we’re offering phone support for Google Drive accessibility questions. If you get stuck, visit support.google.com/drive to request a phone call and someone from our team will reach out to you.

What’s next
As Laura Patterson, CIO, University of Michigan puts it, "The latest improvements in Google Drive and Docs for users of assistive technology are a major step forward and exemplify Google's commitment to making their products available to all members of our community.” We’re pleased the community has welcomed these improvements, and will continue to work with organizations to make even more progress.

Everyone, regardless of ability, should be able to experience all that the web has to offer. To find out more about our commitment to a fully accessible web, visit the new Google Accessibility site at www.google.com/accessibility.

Posted by Carolyn Wendell, GEG Global Program Manager

Three months ago we announced the launch of our Google Educator Groups (GEG), a program aimed at supporting communities of educators who learn, share and inspire each other to meet the needs of their students through technology solutions, both in the classroom and beyond. With 124 groups already off and running, educators are expanding their social and professional networks and gaining skills to deliver the best possible education through open technology across 23 different countries.

GEG meet-ups in India, Philippines, and Australia

GEG provides a space for educators to meet, collaborate and learn both online and in-person. Google+ communities connect group members and serve as an online hub for communication, but leaders also coordinate in-person events and workshops for their group. Whether you’re a teacher, professor or principal, anyone is welcome to join a GEG. Each group is organized by a local volunteer (GEG leader) and is entirely independent from Google.

We recently launched the website in 11 more languages to help support growth of the program in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Thailand, Russia and many more. We couldn't be more excited about the growth of the program and the positive feedback we're hearing from those participating around the world.

If you’re interested in joining a GEG or starting a new one please visit www.google.com/landing/geg to learn more, spread the word and get involved. See you in GEG!

Posted by Kevin Cahill, Comic Relief CEO

(Cross-posted on the Official YouTube blog.)

Editor's note: Kevin Cahill is the CEO of U.K. charity Comic Relief, whose mission is to drive positive change through the power of entertainment. 

This September, as millions of young people head back to the classroom, we’re opening our digital doors to a brand new type of school--and you’re all invited.
The School of YouTube will see many of your favorite YouTube stars learn or teach something new. From figure-skating to salsa dancing, baking a cake to landing a plane, you’ll be able to watch a whole range of weird and wonderful lessons during the week of September 8 to 12.

We all know that YouTube is already like a huge virtual school--a place where people come to learn, to teach, to hang out and make friends--so it makes perfect sense to celebrate this for one week. And the best thing about this school is that you’ll be able to make a real difference to young people who desperately need your help.

The stars of the School of YouTube will be asking for donations to help some of the millions of people around the world who don’t have the opportunity to go to school or get an education. These kids may be struggling to survive on city streets, in slums or in refugee camps. Or they may be in a situation like 10-year-old Daniel from Ghana, who has very little time to get an education because he has to work long shifts in a dangerous gold mine so that his family can afford to eat.

Getting an education is by far the most powerful route out of poverty for these children and that’s where the School of YouTube comes in.

Money raised from donations will go to the U.K. charity Comic Relief, to help give kids an education across some of the world’s poorest countries. And even just £10 or $17 can pay for a Zambian orphan to go to school for two months where they also get a healthy meal--often the only one they’ll eat all day.

So hands up, who’s ready for a lesson at the School of YouTube? If you laugh a little or learn a little, please give a little.

Posted by Samuel Cheung, Head of Google for Education, Access Programs, Asia Pacific 

(Cross-posted from the Official Google Thailand Blog) 

Rain, hail or monsoonal flood, nothing stops the learning at Matthayom Watnairong school in Bangkok. During 2011 when it was too wet to get to school, students and teachers used their own Google accounts to conduct virtual lessons over Hangouts and Drive to share course materials. The experience demonstrated how cloud based tools can support learning, so in 2012 they rolled out Google Apps for Education to the whole school.

Students at Matthayom Watnairong school, Bangkok

Matthayom Watnairong is one school among over a million students and teachers that have gone Google in the last two years. Since 2012 we have been working with Thai educators at over 500 educational institutions in every province to unlock the potential of the web for learning...and we're just getting started.

Technology gives us unprecedented access to knowledge and ways to communicate, but it’s not enough to give teachers and students apps and devices. For technology to enrich learning you need the right infrastructure in place as well as support and training.

We’ve worked with the Ministry of Education and institutions across Thailand to ensure they have the right infrastructure in place to support a digital learning environment. This includes running technical workshops and consultations, training teachers in how to implement technology in the classroom effectively and establishing guidelines with the Ministry to help Thailand’s educational institutions become cloud-ready.

In the last two years we’ve been inspired and humbled to see the power of technology to transform education. Students and teachers at Surathampitak School for example have moved from a “talk and chalk” style of learning to being able to give and receive feedback in real time using Google Docs. Teachers at Chalermkwansatree School have moved from paper based courses to creating websites for each subject using Google Sites which makes it easy for students to access what they need and for teachers to share their resources with other teachers.

Moving to cloud based tools has also helped Thai institutions save money and go green. Since moving from on premise servers to Gmail and Google Drive, Pibulsongkram Rajabhat University now save 3, 200,000 Baht annually on server maintenance and printing costs. While Mahidol University now get student feedback instantly with Google Forms instead of having to issue hundreds of paper feedback forms.

We’re humbled to be helping equip students across Thailand with the skills they’ll need in the 21st century and to be part of a broader transformation of Thailand’s education system. To learn more about Google for Education programs go to http://www.google.com.au/edu