I’ve been holding off on sending out the June EDU update because I knew there were some BIG updates taking place during the ISTE conference. Today in Orlando, Google is announcing 40+ update for the 2026-27 school year!

That’s a LOT of news…but I’ve got you covered.

I spent an entire week reviewing, reading, and considering these new features to determine which ones will have the biggest impact on your classroom. Today’s EDU update isn’t just a list of links, it’s a carefully curated overview of what’s happening, where things are headed, and what this means for your classroom.

Let’s dive into the June updates coming out of the 2026 ISTE conference in Orlando, Florida!

Episode Sponsor: VIZOR for Chromebooks

VIZOR provides Chromebook fleet management Software for Schools. Stop hassling with out of date spreadsheets and paper inventories and move into the 21st century with VIZOR! Check out more than 100 new features included with the latest ‘Drummond’ release by listening to my conversation with Jef Lalond, head of sales for VIZOR.

June Google EDU Update

Google Classroom’s Visual “Glow-Up” ✨ — Google Classroom is getting at much needed visual makeover! New landing pages for teachers, students, and administrators feature collapsible sections in addition to the traditional class cards. Each view pushes useful insights to the front page, from recently due assignments for students, class insights for teachers, and district analytics for administrators.

​Track State Standards in Classroom​ 🎯 — Google has partnered with Satchel Rosetta Exchange to bring standards tracking directly into your dashboard. You can easily attach specific state or national learning standards to your assignments and track student mastery from the home screen. These standards are one of the data points that powered the new classroom insights section mentioned above.

​Read Along for Everyone!​ 📖 — Great news for elementary teachers: Read Along in Google Classroom is no longer locked behind a paid tier. It will be available for all Workspace editions, allowing you to assign targeted reading practice and receive automated fluency metrics on speed, accuracy, and pronunciation. It gets better…Read Along will now generate custom stories from a simple prompt or a PDF, images included!

Chat with Classroom via Gemini​ 🔰 — You can now use the @Classroom tag in the Gemini app to ask questions about your active courses. You can ask things like, “which of my biology periods has the lowest turn-in rate?” or “draft an announcement reminding students to study for next week’s test.” This will be a HUGE time saver, especially if you are managing multiple sections of the same classroom.

Share resources directly to Classroom 🔁 — If you use Gemini to create a rubric, study guide, or student activity, the process of getting it from Gemini to Classroom has been a struggle, until now! A new menu option in Gemini will allow you to push Gemini creations directly to Google Classroom with a single click!

 

​Gemini for Students​ 🧑‍🎓 — Google is bringing student-centered AI tools directly into Google Classroom. Students will see a dedicated “Gemini” tab in Google Classroom packed with tools to help them study and learn independently:

• Help me learn – a Socratic-style tutor that guides students through concepts step-by-step instead of just handing them answers
• Quiz me – customized study quizzes with helpful hints
• Make flashcards – study aids based on YOUR classroom material
• Create a study guide – in-depth summary of YOUR classroom material
• Personal class notebooks – study assistant grounded in classroom material

These features will be available for all workspace editions and can be enabled/disabled by your IT admin.

​Teacher-Led AI Activities​ 🍎 — In addition to the student-led features described above, teachers will be able to assign three teacher-led AI experiences this coming school year:

• ​Guided learning for assignments​
• ​Study notebooks for difficult concepts​
• ​NotebookLM for creative course resources​

These experiences are set up and managed by you and are grounded in your classroom material. You will receive insights on how students are using these features including the ability to monitor student conversations with Gemini.

​“Focus Mode” powered by Class Tools​ 🙈 — If you use Class Tools on student Chromebooks (requires Education Plus), you can trigger a focus mode that locks student screens onto the Gemini Guided Learning experience. They won’t be able to escape the review session or open other tabs until you say so! Class Tools is quickly becoming a must-use tool for schools with 1:1 Chromebook programs.

​Temporary Gemini Chats​ 🫥 — Temporary chats have arrived in your school account! Use temporary chats to have a quick conversation with Gemini without clogging up your chat history. These conversations won’t be visible to you, but are still part of your district’s public record based on the configuration of your IT department.

​Gemini Projects in Google Drive​ 📂 — Gemini has desperately needed a better way to manage projects. I’m happy to announce, that it’s here! You will soon see a “projects” tab in Google Drive where you can create a collaborative workspace with Gemini. You can save your brainstorms, reference files, and draft lesson plans in one shared folder, making it a great space for collaborative team-planning.

See you next month!

Those are the Google EDU updates for the month of June! Join more than 20,000 educators who received my monthly updates via email! It’s a free, convenient way to stay up-to-date on the world of edTech!

---