Top Instructional Tools in Google Meet

    In 2020 we were all introduced to video conferencing tools to keep connected personally and professionally while meeting in person was discouraged. Because everyone relied so heavily on our video conferencing tools, we saw rapid, extensive growth in the capabilities of the video conferencing applications. In AACPS, we used Google Meet for virtual instruction. If/when schools shift to virtual for inclement weather or other emergency closures in the future, Google Meet will remain our go-to application for students and teachers to connect. Are you familiar with the awesome instructional tools built into this application?

Screen sharing options

When you click to present your screen, you will have 3 options to choose from. You can choose to share a Chrome tab, a Window, or your Entire Screen. But WHAT are you actually sharing with each choice?

    Chrome tab - this option shares a single application on your screen meaning one program or one tab in your Chrome browser. The important thing to know about this option is, if you plan to share a video clip that includes audio, this is the option you choose because it will play the audio along with the video. But, be aware that if you switch from that tab to another, even though you see the new tab, your students still see the video because that is the only tab you are sharing to the meeting.

    Window - this option will share anything associated with the selected window on your computer. For example, I might have Chrome open in two different windows, in one I have my meeting:

In another, I have my Google Drive and a document I want to share with my students:

When I choose present a window, I can toggle between all tabs open in that window and my students will see whichever tab I see, but if I switch to a different window, they do not see what I see. This can be useful if you have two monitors. You can have an application like your gradebook or email open on one and then all of your instructional applications in different tabs on the other. You can then toggle between those tabs as you need to share each with your students while ensuring that those grades or emails are kept confidential.

    Entire Screen - this allows you to move between any tabs or applications you have open on your computer and whatever you see is what is being shared to your students. For those of us in OIT, when we are helping to troubleshoot a problem over Google Meet, this is what we always request when asking someone to share. This ensures that wherever I ask you to go to try to identify the problem, we will go there together.

Raise hand

Raising your hand is an integral part of a classroom experience. In a virtual meeting, it is actually even more important as multiple people unmuting at once can be instantly overwhelming and make it impossible to tell who is even trying to speak. Google Meet incorporates a Raise hand button along the toolbar at the bottom to indicate you have a question or comment to make.

There is even an option in settings to turn on Raise your hand automatically. This allows you to simply raise your hand, as you would in the classroom and if you have your camera turned on, it will recognize your palm and turn on the raise hand symbol by your thumbnail. 

Something important is to remember to lower your hand by clicking on Raise hand again once you are finished, but even if you forget, Meet has a setting that if it hears you speak, it will assume you have been addressed and lower you hand automatically.

Reactions

Reactions allow you to let others in the meeting know how you feel. You can use the thumbs-up to show agreement, give applause after a classmate has shared an idea, or even use the Thinking/Confused face to indicate you might need clarification, or have questions about a topic. For some of the reactions like Hearts, Applause, Confetti, and Laughing, if you quickly tap the button 3 times in a row, you will get an explosion of that reaction. There is even an option in settings to turn on a sound that accompanies these big reactions. But don’t worry, it isn’t super disruptive, it is just a cute little “popping” noise and it isn’t turned on for everyone, just the user who selected that setting.

Closed Captions

Closed captions is an important accessibility tool built into any quality video application. The important thing about the captions tool in Google Meet is that the teacher cannot turn it on for the students or even know who is using it. That is why it is important to make sure students know that the tool is there, how to use it and what features are included, like live translations. When a user clicks on CC on their toolbar across the bottom, their presentation window shrinks a bit and moves up on the screen leaving space for the captions to appear along the bottom of the screen.

By default, captions will display in the same language as the speaker, which will often be English. But a user can enter their Settings, choose Captions and then choose the option to have their captions translated in real time into the language of their choosing.

Activities

The Activities tab is specifically for education. It includes options like Breakout Rooms, Polls, Q&A and more. When a meeting Host or Co-host selects the Activities icon, they can choose to begin or access an ongoing activity.

Breakout rooms - split students into small groups so they can discuss ideas separate from the whole class. Students can be randomly assigned to breakout rooms or placed into specific groups as works best for your grouping needs.

Polls - ask your students a question and get data from the whole class rather than just a few who frequently share. The polls will display percentages of each answer chosen so specific opinions are anonymous while still being recorded as part of the class.

Q&A - this can be a great alternative to the steady stream of comments and questions in the chat. When students post a question in the Q&A tool everyone can see the question. Classmates can upvote the question if they also find the topic confusing and want to spend more time on it. The presenter can pick the questions they will respond to based on upvotes. What truly sets this apart from using the chat tool is that answers are not typed into the Q&A tool, rather they are answered aloud as determined by the teacher. The teacher can delete questions that are duplicates or off topic, can hide questions that they don’t wish to cover yet and can even mark questions as answered once they have addressed them. Each option removes the question from the list that students can see.

Host controls

These are crucial to classroom management in a virtual meeting. First, the meeting host can make anyone a co-host in a meeting ensuring that they have access to the activities and the host controls for the class. This can ensure that the classroom teacher, the co-teacher and a guest presenter for today’s class (for example) can all manage the meeting settings. To make someone a co-host, select the People tab, then select the “snowman” next to their name and choose Add as co-host.

That person will then see the host controls icon (the lockbox) appear on their Meet toolbar in the bottom right corner. In the host controls you can:

By default all of these settings are on, but if students are misusing the reactions tool for example and distracting classmates from the lesson, you can simply turn those off in the host controls until an appropriate time. Also, it is important to note that the setting to turn on microphone and video does not mean you can turn them on for participants. It means you are allowing or not allowing them to turn them on for themselves.

    Finally, when you are setting up a meeting for instruction, it is important to use Nicknamed meetings. These are a specific type of meeting that prevents students from entering the meeting until it is opened by a staff member and prevents students from re-entering once the meeting has ended. This has been an issue when students have taken over “old meeting links” to hang with friends outside of school. For step-by-step instructions on setting up a nicknamed meeting to put in your Brightspace course for students, see the Meetings with Students document.