Workspace, a service provided by Facebook, is a digital platform that allows you to collaborate, connect with remote colleagues, and enhance distance learning. The tool provides a wide variety of interesting features that make it especially relevant during this trying period when everybody relies on their computers and digital devices to connect, learn, or teach.
As a teacher you can use Workspace to engage your students indifferent distance learning experiences. It enables you to create different groups, arrange the privacy settings of each group and control who can or can not post. For instance, you can create a group for each class of yours where you share numerous types of multimedia materials including files, photos, videos, updates and many more. To keep track of your teaching progress and learn about how your students are faring with their online learning, you can use the in-built polling and surveying tools to collect instantaneous data which you can then turn it into insightful resources to help you with formative assessment.
Here is a list of other key features provided by Workspace:
1- Live video broadcasting
“Live video is an engaging way to communicate news and announcements to your team or company. It lets you film yourself using your phone or laptop (or even a professional studio), broadcast your message live to your whole company or just a handful of people, and get real-time feedback in the form of comments and reactions.”
2- Auto-translate
This is a great future students can use to translate resources and digital content across various languages.
3- Integrated with Google Drive, Dropbox and several other platforms
“With over 50 integrations with the world’s leading cloud services – from Office 365 and G Suite to Dropbox, Salesforce and SharePoint – it makes it easier to bring employees on board, discover documents and work together.”
4- Chat
“Workplace Chat is ideal for quick conversations, allowing you to contact anyone in your business, and communicate with GIFs, stickers, emojis or an iconic thumbs-up. Send voice clips, run polls and even share your current location with colleagues if you’re on the road.”
5- Polls
“Polls let you set up multiple options for people to choose from, so you can collectively decide anything from what to ask the CEO at the monthly Q&A, to where your team should go for lunch.”
6- Surveys
“Pose whatever questions you need, choose whether you want people to answer in their own words or choose from a set of options, and send your survey to whichever people you choose over Workplace Chat.”
Workspace essential version is free but is limited in terms of features it provides. Advanced and Enterprise versions are premium versions that provide more functionalities. The advanced version provides discounts for educational institutions.
