Dive Brief:

• Google went live on Tuesday with a website where college and K-12 educators can apply to be part of a limited beta test of the new Google Classroom application.
• Google Classroom helps professors and teachers create and collect assignments, see which students have completed them, and provide real-time feedback. Students, on the other hand, can see all assignments due and file their work instantly to Google Drive folders.
• The free app will be available in September to schools that use Apps for Education.

Dive Insight:

Google's Apps for Education suite has some 30 million users, obviously giving it a huge advantage over other startups trying to pitch apps in the space — though it is soliciting for ed tech developers wanting to integrate their software with Classroom. Google has pledged that it will have no advertising on the app and that it won’t collect data posted on Classroom, fitting with the policy unveiled last week that halted data mining of student and teacher Gmail accounts and the use of Apps for Education data in ad targeting.

Google hasn’t announced how many educators will be allowed into the beta of Classroom, but those who are accepted will be notified in a month. About a dozen schools have used the pilot version so far, and the app is expected to be released in 40 languages.