This year at SXSWedu there was a lot of buzz in the Google lounge about a new product coming down the pike. Thousands of teachers were already using Google Docs as part of Google Apps For Education as their own free LMS (learning management system). Teachers were adapting Google Apps For Education in the ways that best met their needs but it still wasn’t totally an educational offering.  Well Google heard that call.

Now, Google’s Apps For Education team has unveiled Classroom their take on a learning management system. This new free tool for teachers is designed to help teachers organize, assign, and collect work done across Google Docs.

Google Docs have taken a front and center seat in the education space because the tools are free and allow students to do everything from write reports, to organize and create presentations, to developing spread sheets. Google Apps for Education optimizes existing apps for the world of education, Classroom will help teachers manage all of that.

Teachers will be able to set up rosters of students in Classroom, you know similar to those old school grade books. There, every student will be connected to the teacher through Classroom and the teacher can assign, monitor and grade assignments. The teacher can also interact with the student, give instruction, advice and see in real time how their students are doing.

Another feature, called “Class Streams” will allow teachers to interact with students across the class in an almost social network setting. Students will be able to respond to the teacher and other students as well. This feature will come in handy when working on collaborative assignments or even when working on homework, and getting help.

“Classroom will work right along Hapara’s tools. We’ve worked with them before, and both share a fundamental goal in making [Google Apps] easier for professors and teachers to use,” Zach Yeskel a product manager for Google’s Apps For Education Team told EdSurge.

Google has already beta tested Classroom across 90 classrooms in a dozen or so schools. They have opened up an invite request site and plan to go live at the kickoff of the next school year. Also, Google is looking for developers who want to build tools and features for Classroom. Interested developers can sign up here.