Google listens. Really! They do. They are actually very good at reading through all feedback and making changes that people want in their products.
This past spring when most divisions went all virtual and as schools have continued to have a virtual part to their programs, Google has been listening to the feedback from teachers for some of their products that have become indispensable in this new age we are living in.
One of those products that wasn't used too much prior is Google Meet. Educators quickly found weak points in Google Meet that were causing all sorts of issues when they were trying to run their classroom or communicate with students in a virtual format.
Teachers made suggestions ...... Google listened. Because of this, we have had some pretty significant changes to Google Meet in the past month with more changes coming.
Here are some of the new features:
Host controls
When you start a named Meet or open one through Google Classroom, you may notice a new icon in the lower-left corner where the name of the Meet is.
When you click on the blue shield with a lock you will get a list of host controls.
We can now:
- enable or turn off screen sharing for students
- turn off the ability for students to use the chat feature (not individually, we allow or turn it off for everyone)
- disable anonymous joining
- have those not invited made to ask to join
Blur background
This one is cool. There are some students who may be uncomfortable joining a Meet where people can see what is in the environment behind them. Participants in a Meet can now blur their background. When participants click on the 3 dots in the lower right hand of their screen, there is a list of new options, including blur background.
Additional layout options
In the same menu, there has always been the option to change the layout of the Meet so you can spotlight the speaker, have a sidebar, or a tiled view. Now, we can customize the tiled view. We can set how many different participants we would like to see in the tiled view.
Jamboard and Meet (whoo hoo!!!!!)
The other week, I shared out Gail Moore's blog post about Jamboard (Google's interactive whiteboard app). Jamboard has now been integrated into Meet so a Jam can be started from the Meet itself. What a great way to deliver instruction and have students participate as well. Just click on the 3 dots in the lower left and select "Whiteboard open a Jam".
We can start a new Jam or open one previously created in Drive.
If we start a new one, then the Jam will automatically be named with the same name as the Meet.
As always, we can still record our Meets and if we want, we can even cast our Meet (if we have a device with a Chromecast) to a larger screen.
These are some super awesome new features in Meet!!! Let me know what you think!
