Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) is a Microsoft Cloud subscription service that includes Microsoft Office products (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, and Access). The software can be installed across multiple devices and ensures that users always have the most up-to-date version of the included Office applications.
$5
Per User Per Month
Pricing
Google Classroom
Microsoft 365
Editions & Modules
Education Fundamentals
$0
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Standard
$3
per student/per year
Teaching and Learning Upgrade
$4
per license/per month
Google Workspace for Education Plus
$5
per student/per year
Business Basic
$5.00
Per User Per Month
Individual
$5.84
*Per Month
Business - Apps
$8.25
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - F3
$10.00
Per User Per Month
Business Standard
$12.50
Per User Per Month
Business Premium
$20.00
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - E3
$32.00
Per User Per Month
Enterprise - E5
$57.00
Per User Per Month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google Classroom
Microsoft 365
Free Trial
Yes
No
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
Education Fundamentals Version - 30-day free trial for qualifying institutions.
Google Classroom ties to the Google G Suite for EDU which has very good support and documentation as needed, at no additional cost, which is a big deal for setting it up. The integration with Chromebooks, Active Directory, Clever and other common platforms make it very …
Google Classroom is the best because it is user-friendly and the students can easily find the information and assignments they need. Google Classroom was selected because it interfaces with Google Drive for Education which students used. Students can view other students' work …
The good thing about Google Classroom is that you can easily repurpose or reuse an assignment you have created before, which saves much time for me. It is also easy for me to manage my online courses and it is very accessible to my learners. Google Classroom is also easily …
It's more secure and has more powerful tools for the classroom and it integrates well with our LMS. Office 365 provides our students with the ability to work on or offline and having a tool that has the immersive reader, translator built right into the system is extremely …
- During the pandemic, the college needs a fast and easy solution to conduct Google Classroom. The integration with Google Accounts and Google Meet allows the university to run and access the Classroom on a large scale. - The teacher wants to conduct some exams in third-party software like Moodle. But we have not found any plugin for this famous open-source learning platform. The exam system in Google Classroom is so poor that it doesn't even fully screen the test when students are writing their exams.
Microsoft 365 is well-suited for:Small and Medium-sized Businesses (SMBs): Microsoft 365 offers a cost-effective solution for SMBs to access a suite of essential productivity tools without the need for extensive IT infrastructure. It provides a wide range of applications, allowing teams to collaborate, communicate, and manage documents efficiently.Remote Work and Collaboration: Microsoft 365's cloud-based nature makes it ideal for remote work scenarios. With tools like Microsoft Teams, employees can easily communicate, hold video conferences, and collaborate on projects in real-time, regardless of their location.Microsoft 365 may be less appropriate for:Organizations with Specific Software Requirements: Some organizations may have specialized software needs that are not met by Microsoft 365. In such cases, they may require industry-specific software or custom solutions.Limited Internet Connectivity: Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based platform, which means a stable internet connection is essential for optimal functionality. Organizations with poor internet connectivity might face challenges using the cloud-based applications effectively.
Student-teacher communication - I love using Classroom for this because my students can always go back and check what was on Classroom by looking through the stream. This way they don't have to go dig through emails to find what they're looking for.
Posting to multiple classes - I can post the same announcement or assignment to multiple classes at once without having to repeat the process or send separate emails.
Streamlining grading - when students turn work in on Classroom, it all goes to one place and then when I'm grading I can open their documents directly from Classroom or my Drive folder. This way, I'm not looking through emails and Google Doc shared files for their assignment.
keeps me extremely organized. It is so easy to link calendars, emails, and documents.
keeps me well connected. It is so easy to send a quick message on teams or send an email to a group (for example, my particular team within the company).
easy to use. Everything is straightforward, making it easy to find an answer to a question. There is even a search option to figure out how to do something within Microsoft.
Although usually in the discussion with other LMS apps such as Schoology and Canvas, Google Classroom doesn't possess as in-depth of a platform. There is no ability to set individual learning paths, pace student work with completion settings, or embed other apps directly into teacher-created assignments.
The assignment creation options are limited. Teachers can only choose from creating an assignment (usually a link with directions), a material (usually a doc/slide/website, etc), a question, and a quiz.
With gamification taking on a new lens in education, there really isn't any way to use gamification elements with Google Classroom. There isn't any way to create Individual learning paths, or use badges and micro-credentials within Classroom. Outside programs would have to be used.
Microsoft 365 really needs to work on protection part. In complex environment it is not reliable as compared to its competitors like Proofpoint. There are many instances where it fails to perform effectively.
In SharePoint Online the versioning feature of the document needs to be improved by Microsoft. Sometimes when we have to roll back to the previous version it does not work as expected.
In Teams messaging and app permission policies can be improved. There are some settings where we have to add a lot of things manually.
Testing is particularly important in online learning, and Google Classroom falls far short of other learning management systems in this regard. Security is also a concern: while account control is reasonable for the account used with Google Classroom, the person controlling a particular account is often able to, for example, forward or download proprietary materials.
This is only a product I would recommend to a humanities teacher. Math and science teachers cannot use this product the same way that I can as an English teacher. It is great for word process and for reading, but unable to handle the demands of math and science. Therefore, I would highly recommend this product to English or Social Studies teachers, but NOT math or science teachers
The interface of the different tools (this suite has MANY different tools) is usually simple to use and intuitive, and you can always re-arrange and add or remove the task you use most frequently from the menus and task bars.
Each tool / product includes a lot of features that may require a more intensive learning, but usually Office 365 tools are simple to learn from scratch, adding more knowledge as you required more advanced features
Since this platform is provided by Google, the technical support is better than any others, and we are not required to bother about the space constraints for adding the contents. If we have a good uninterrupted internet facility we can access Google Classroom without any delay or lag. They have app support in both Android and iPhone.
Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.
It was relatively easy to implement due to the simplicity of the platform. Even our more technology challenged teachers found it easy to get started with Google Classroom.
I haven't tested or evaluated another digital classroom website or application. I feel like Google Classroom is convenient for many reasons such as compatibility to Google docs, slides, etc. I also love the ability to link to YouTube and other sites. I don't know if there would be a site that is easier to maneuver.
Google Sheets is better for sharing and collaborative editing. Versioning of the same file is also one of Google Sheets strong points.
Microsoft 365 is better for working with local files. It is much easier to store the file in multiple places and backup multiple versions in multiple places.
LibreOffice is free but the usage is much counter intuitive than Microsoft Office. OpenOffice is worse when it comes to UI.
Microsoft Excel's performance with larger files is much better. When opening huge files, excel loads it asynchronously and I can start working right away.
Positively, it has increased productivity and efficiency in creating templates and being able to systemize some of the protocols we are working on putting into place.
It has been a positive as well as most individuals and companies that we associate with also use MicroSoft 365 and therefore there is no need to have formats change in our documents when they open them up using another type of program.
