G Suite vs Office 365: Which is Best for Students?

• This article originally appeared on Android platform Central and was introduced to our back to school guide

Before deciding on a G or Office 365 category, first look if you already have free access to one of these as a student through your school. Most school districts or schools have educational partnerships with Google or Microsoft and expand some student services. It would be smart to install the selected school program for your device to be compatible with the same apps and services.

However, if you want an account separate from the school, or if your school doesn't offer free access to their students, then we recommend using the Office 365 Education plan because you can still make an account as a student even if your school doesn't has a contract with them. All you need is the correct address. Office 365 Education gives you access to all your office programs and teams—its collaboration tool—and comes with plenty of cloud storage.

Comparing two

What you need to know about Office 365 Education

An Office 365 Education subscription gives you access to eight Office programs, including Outlook, Word, Excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint. You also have access to 12 Microsoft services like OneDrive, Skype, SharePoint and Forms. Office 365 lives in the cloud, so it doesn't take up much space on your computer and allows you to access all of its programs and saved projects from anywhere and from any device. Just sign in to your online portal and you have access to everything from a publisher to OneNote.

Apps can be pinned to Android smartphones and tablets for quick access on the go, and you can download each Office program to your laptop or computer for offline use. However, you must log into your account frequently enough to keep your subscription active.

Microsoft Teams is a chat program that comes with your Office 365 Education subscription that lets you talk to people in your class, teachers, or other students in real time. Anyone can create channels that reflect a particular class or projects, or you can keep it more private with in-person chat - like Slack. Within the team, you can call other employees or hold a video conference with up to 50 people at the same time. You can also share documents and give direct access to them, so that everyone in your group can add, edit, and work on a project at the same time from the hub's command view window. As files are changed, all copies, including those saved to OneDrive, are automatically updated.

One important note about Office 365 Education: If you've accessed through your school, it's possible for administrators, employees, educators, and others to see some personal data and saved files. Because admins set rules for OneDrive, they can restrict files to be deleted and view data there. Even if you create an education account on your own, Microsoft will automatically connect your account to your school if it ever becomes available. Because of this, we do not recommend using this program for personal use. However, you can purchase an Office 365 personal account to use separately from your account to store your personal files and personal documents. This subscription will cost about $70 per year.

All About G Suite for Education

The G Suite for Education comes with an impressive amount of collaboration tools from Hangouts, Groups, Jamboard, and Classroom. Each allows real-time communication and project creation with multiple people in a way that is easy to use and see. You can chat or video conference in Hangouts to help everyone get on the same page. Other collaboration tools for users are the Jamboard room - the cloud whiteboard - and the classroom.

The classroom is managed by individual educators to create space for homework assignments, send out reminders, collect and sort completed projects, and walk along virtual handouts and other learning materials. Educators can also assign group projects and create classroom study groups to help build collaboration.

The G Suite allows you to share files, save to disk, and allows them to view and edit them in real time. This is done by creating a link and sharing it. You can see when others are in the same files as you and watch how changes are made. However, it's a little clunky and we notice that there's a slight delay, so it's possible a few changes could mesh together and cause some confusion. G Suite tracks changes though and won't make them permanent without your consent.

The G Suite Office programs, like documents and spreadsheets, work similarly to the Microsoft Office programs with most of the features and tools located in the same places and they use the same program shortcuts. You can also open and view office documents, spreadsheets and slideshows in G Suite if you need to convert them to Google's format to change them. This may change some of the fonts and formatting of the projects and requires a bit of tweaking - it's work. Also, we've noticed that some tools and features don't work the same, or don't work at all in G Suite. For example, some macro features in Excel are not available in Google Sheets, so its harder to get the same results.

The biggest catch with using the G Suite for Education is students may not have an account unless their school has a subscription. Even teachers can't register or use any of the tools until the school is set up in partnership with Google.

Google has two G Suite education programs with one offered by the school and its teachers and students for free. With this software integrated across the school, teachers can create separate classrooms, give access to the G Suite to their students using the school's email address, and create an environment for effective interaction and learning. Students can have a personal Google account in one account, access Google Drive and office programs, although personal accounts cannot be used to access the r suite for education.

Compatible with Office 365 and G Suite

Because Office 365 and G Suite are cloud-based, you can access them from any device, including Mac computers. Simply logging into your account through a web browser gives you access to all your programs, files and applications. Like Office 365 and G suites there are apps that you can download to your mobile phone to access and edit certain files if you need a separate app for each program. However, installing Google Drive or OneDrive will allow you to connect to any saved file created with its program compatibility With some major changes and sharing features.

If you, or your school, own a netbook, you'll find easy access to G Suite and other Google cloud programs already installed on your desktop. However, if you are a 365 user, you can still sign in to your account and use your apps from your Chromebook using an internet browser, just like you do from a laptop or computer.

Both G Suite and Office 365 can access programs offline. For G Suite users, simply specify in G Suite that you would like a particular file to be available offline. Once the device you use to connect to the internet, file changes will be updated within the cloud program.

To use Office 365 offline, you need to download the office software for a compatible Windows laptop or computer. You are given the option to install Office programs locally when you first subscribe, but can download them at any time during your active subscription. You need to sign in to the cloud program at least every 30 days for your online Office 365 subscription to stay active and sync changes made offline. Microsoft will prompt you to do this so you don't have to memorize it yourself.

Wrapping Up: Our Closing Thoughts

When it comes to choosing between G Suite for Education or Office 365 for Education, start by finding out which one your school is using. It's as simple as asking a teacher or talking to a student. Using the same program will ensure that you are on the same page as teachers and have access to the same collaboration tools that they use.

If you don't need to use certain programs to collaborate with your teacher or classmates, then this will usually come down to personal preference. You can use one over the other, or even mix and match the programs from each package. Since G Suite and Office 365 are cloud-based, you can easily switch between them without worrying about your hard drive.

The only reason Office 365 Education is getting an extra boost from us - and we love using Google and its programs - is because you'll be able to download this program for free for as long as you, or your child, is a student with an active and verifiable address. school email. Even if your school does not have a contract with Microsoft to use its teacher program, students can still use the program at no cost to them.

G Suite, on the other hand, is only available if your school has entered into an agreement with Google to use their education program. If your school doesn't use G Suite, you can still access a free, individual Google One account to finish your homework. You just won't have access to collaboration tools through the G Suite for Education.