At its Event Any School School 2020 today, Google announced a number of distance learning updates across Google Classroom and Google Meet to help schools begin this coming semester. In addition, Google launched a new app called Assignments, the Tech Toolkit for families and caregivers, and an update to school accounts in Chrome OS. The company said its tool ‘will lighten the load for teachers, school leaders, families, and especially the students who have learned at home with grace and resilience.’
The pandemic has led to a virtual assembly war. Microsoft Teams has seen more than 200 million meeting partners in one day, while Zoom has seen 300 million daily meeting participants. (Unlike daily active users, “meeting sharers” can count the same user more than once.) By comparison, Google Meet has seen 100 million participants. Meet is, of course, just one part of Google’s bid to include Microsoft and Zoom in offering collaboration tools to businesses, consumers and educators. But specifically for learning during the pandemic, the spotlight is on Google Classroom.
Google Classroom
Google Classroom students can expect a new tow widget on the Classes page to help them see what’s coming, what’s missing, and what’s been reviewed. Teachers will meanwhile receive a to-review widget. Most importantly, teachers will soon be able to share a link to invite students to their class (seriously, this was not previously an option). Google notes that this can allow classes to share “anywhere they communicate with students, including in messaging platforms like WhatsApp.”
Google also updates Classroom originality reports. Teachers will be able to perform originality reports five times per course at a time (out of three). Customers of G Suite Enterprise for Education will continue with unlimited reports on originality and in a few weeks they will be able to watch contests for potential plagiarism against websites and submissions of students at their school. If administrators want to actively manage the school-owned repository, they can manually add files or delete documents immediately. Teachers can also print, save and download reports to share with students, parents and administrators. Messages about originality will also soon be available in multiple languages, including Spanish, Portuguese, Norwegian, Swedish, Indonesian and Italian.
Speaking of G Suite, administrators are getting more powerful tools. School leaders with Enterprise licenses will be more visible to Classroom users through new Data Studio dashboards that show active classes, measure function adoption, and monitor the involvement of teachers and students. Google is also making it easier to synchronize Classroom degrees with a push to a Student Information System (SIS), starting with Infinite Campus customers (more SISs to come).
All education administrators will now also have access to Classlog audit logs. Administrators with an Enterprise license can also export their logs to BigQuery or create a customizable dashboard on Data Studio to see a list of engagement metrics.
Eventually, Classroom will soon be available in 10 additional Native American languages, bringing the total supported languages to 54.
Google Meet
In September, Google Meet will get a larger 7 × 7 tiled view of up to 49 people, according to Microsoft Teams and Zoom. Meet will also get an integrated Jamboard whiteboard for collaboration, plus new controls for moderators:
- Participants are prohibited from attending meetings after they have been postponed or denied access twice (launched later this month).
- Final meetings for all participants when the class is ready.
- Manage your requests easily with them accepted or rejected in bulk.
- Enable chat in the meeting and set restrictions for who can present during a meeting.
- An institution that requires the teacher first.
In October, Google will bring custom and blurry backgrounds to Meet (which admins can disable if necessary). Customers of G Suite Enterprise for Education will also win breakout rooms (so that educators can divide classes into small group discussions at the same time) and present tracking (to see and track which students attended virtual class). All of this will bring Meet on par with similar features in Microsoft Teams and Zoom.
Later this year (Google did not specify an exact date) Google will be working out a manual increase for all Meet users. Customers of G Suite Enterprise for Education will also receive Q&A and query features. All Education customers will receive a new temporary admission feature (premium admissions will still be part of G Suite Enterprise for Education). This new feature lets meeting hosts record a meeting and share the recording within their domain up to 30 days before the video expires. Temporary recordings are intended to address differences in Internet access, and to help students replay a class or session they were unable to attend live.
Commands, Tech Toolkit, and Chrome OS
For educators who do not have Classroom or Meet, Google Assignments introduces an application for each learning management system (LMS) that supports LTI 1.1 and higher (such as Canvas, Schoology and Blackboard). Assignments are intended to provide educators with a faster way to disseminate, analyze, and grade student work. The tool can automatically create and distribute personalized classroom copies in each student’s Google Drive folder, provide quick feedback, and keep grades consistent and transparent with originality reports.
Google today also launched the Tech Toolkit for Families and Caregivers (PDF). It is intended to help parents better understand the technology that their children use in class. Free training, resources, and professional development programs are also available at the new Teacher Center.
Finally, school accounts can now be added to Chrome OS. Students can thus access Classroom and its school files, while parents can keep an eye on them through Family Link.
