I've got to admit it was hard for me to get an accurate read on the specifics, or the benefits vs. drawbacks of Google Classroom based on the information on their website.  The problem for me was that in these "case studies," particularly in the videos, the products were portrayed as all-purpose solutions to everything that have created a world where everyone is smiling, and the music let you know that you should be smiling too because the answers we've all been waiting for have finally arrived.  Both the videos and the written pieces were long on claims of usefulness, but short on specifics, often conflating the benefits of the overall activities (such as theater) with the apps and devices the students were using while engaging in those activities.  The impact portrait for Brevard Public Schools in Florida claimed that by using G Suite and Chromebooks, the school saw a 3% increase in both ELA and math proficiency from one year to the next, but since I can't help but notice that the piece is an advertisement, I have to question how much of that increase is really due to the use of Google products.  A 3% increase across both subjects does seem to indicate a positive change across the board, so it might indicate a correlation with the technology, but we don't know whether proficiency was already increasing due to added funding, more or better teachers, smaller class sizes, a new educational approach, implementation of Common Core Standards or any number of other factors omitted from the "study," or whether the increase is small enough that it falls within the normal fluctuation of year-to-year progress a school might have.  In my opinion, as the world becomes more and more dominated by media technology, the ability to critically evaluate the legitimacy and intent of the content on our screens will be at least as necessary as the ability to use these apps.

ON THE OTHER HAND--

My kids' school district partnered with Apple to provide one-to-one technology several years ago, providing all our kids with school iPads, and it's been a tremendous boon.  When the pandemic hit, the transition was relatively smooth.  Our district didn't have the problem so many others had in reaching students who, often due to economic disadvantage, didn't have immediate access to computers.  My fourth-grader uses Google Hangouts, Sheets, Slides, and other collaborative technology to do assignments with her classmates in groups from home.  I assume this wouldn't be relied upon so heavily if the kids were physically present in classrooms together, but I can see the benefits for collaborating on homework projects even under non-pandemic circumstances.  

In my own remote learning, I've used Google Docs to collaborate on group projects in real time, though personally, I'm not a huge fan of it.  Writing while other people can see me gives me that irritating sense that someone's reading over my shoulder.  I liken it to having to get dressed in a room full of people.  In my writing, you're going to see too much of me as it is, I'd prefer if you didn't watch live as I obsessively rethink, rewrite and edit what I'll eventually present to the world.  No one needs to see that.

Overall, I can see tremendous benefit to Google Classroom, despite the bias in its advertising.  It looks like nearly every conceivable aspect of organizing life as a teacher is covered by these apps.  From ways to remain in constant communication with parents, students and other professionals, to programs that organize grading rubrics, allow easy feedback for formative assessment, assist with grammar and the writing process in general, and store and organize the entirety of class output, it really does look like a handy way to conduct your entire class.  

I do have concerns about kids growing up almost entirely on screens though.  Forests around the world will thank us as we'll be using far less paper now, but there's something creepy about the addiction to screens that seems to inevitably result from their perpetual use.  We'll need to actively regulate these things in ways that we're only just beginning to understand, and I don't see us getting any help from Google in this regard as their ads certainly don't mention this.  That brings up another concern: There's something I find disturbing in the idea that every aspect of a given classroom might exist under the umbrella of a single for-profit corporate entity.  We're already seeing these tech monopolies begin to pick and choose which sources of information we see, whose opinions are too dangerous, what products are prominently placed in our search results.  I know a lot of people who think this is mostly benign since our information consumption is being regulated by corporations instead of the government, or that this isn't cause for concern since it's only Evil Nazi Bad Guys who get deplatformed, but I don't see many examples from history where large organizations acquire the power to determine reality through control of information that end well for the populations involved, regardless of the original intent of said large organization.  It just seems like the comprehensiveness with which Google has delved into every single aspect of education and everything else is something we need to be wary of.          

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Less than an hour after writing this, I read this article for my Educational Psychology class:

Is Google Making Us Stupid?

It contains a much more articulate and terrifying concern about Google, starts off by describing a phenomenon I'm noticing in my own ability to process lengthy reading assignments, and contains quotes and ideas by some of my favorite thinkers.  Here's a nice quote from the author:

"Once I was a scuba diver in a sea of words.  Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski."

And here's a scarier prophesy from someone else:

"In the past the man has been first, in the future the system must be first"

            --Fredrick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management, 1911