As distance learning continues, Google Meet introduces a handful of new features, including emoji responses to help students express themselves better and more teacher controls.
Google says its “first priority” in Meet is to “make meetings safe and secure.” Last year, it blocked anonymous users and allowed teachers to control who could chat and present. New features over the coming months include:
- End the meeting for everyone, including in break-out rooms, to avoid unsupervised discussion after the teacher has left [Coming soon]
- Mute all participants at once [Next few weeks]
- Host control or students can dampen themselves [April]
- Top controls for Android and iOS apps [Coming months]
Meanwhile, Google improves the integration between Classroom and Measure [later this year]:
- Students may not attend classroom-generated meetings in front of teachers
- Only students in the Classroom Timetable class can participate in a call
- Each teacher in the Classroom is by default a host for multi-user management. Also come to Meet
Outlets can also be scheduled ahead of time in Google Calendar, while an admin control can determine if another school’s accounts can join calls:
This will make it easier to facilitate things like student-to-student connections across districts, professional development opportunities for educators, and external speakers attending a class.
In August, Google Meeting added emoji responses as a ‘light, non-disruptive way’ to respond and apply class. The hand button at the bottom of the screen opens a panel with a series of responses – controllable by administrators – with the ability to set emoji skin tones. The ability to virtually raise your hand remains.
Google Measure in the coming months will work better on low-bandwidth connections, as well as adding transcripts to absent students. Other announcements today include:
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