What's New in Google - November 2020

Catch up on everything new in G Suite for Education from November 2020, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our November 2020 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda with all the awesome resources and G Suite updates from the last few months. This includes lots of new Google updates and Google resources for your class.

The monthly meetings are hosted by the Google Educator Group of Ohio, but are open to anyone from any location. The purpose of these meetings is to:

• Connect Google-using educators
• Share the latest Google Apps news and features
• Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
• Share best practices of how Google Apps is being used within schools
• Ask questions and get answers

The video from the meeting is recorded and available for later viewing for those who cannot attend or connect live. See below to view the recorded video, agenda, and all the resources from the November 2020 meeting:

Google Meet Q&A Feature

The Q&A feature in Google Meet is a great way for your attendees to be able to submit questions and vote on which questions are most important to them. It also allows you an easy way to keep track of the questions, see what is most popular, and then check off the questions as you work through them in your session.

Note: The official Q&A feature is only available for people who are using the Enterprise version of the Google suite of tools. If your school does not pay for the Google tools, but instead uses the free version, you will not have the Q&A tool, as well as other Enterprise features. I do have a separate video where I cover alternate ways to do Q&A in Meet if you are using the free version which you can see here: 3 Q&A Alternatives for Google Meet

However, for those who have the Enterprise version of Google Meet, I have put together a short 6-minute video on how to use the official Q&A feature. See below for the video.

3 Google Meet Q&A Alternatives

Google Meet has an awesome built-in feature for Q&A, but unfortunately that is only available for people who are using the Enterprise version of G Suite, which means schools that pay for the Google tools. If your school uses the Enterprise version, then be sure to check out my other post and video that explains how to use the official Q&A feature here: Google Meet Q&A Feature

However, if your school uses the free version of the Google tools, then the Q&A feature will not be available for you. So to help with this, I put together a quick 8-minute video to explain a workaround that will let you sort of do your own Q&A in Meet. Since these are just workarounds, they are not perfect, and are not the only way this could be done, but they are good options. These are just my suggestions for alternative ways to do Q&A in Meet, but please feel free to share your workarounds in the comments.

See below for the video and related resource links.

Google Meet Breakout Rooms

Breakout Rooms are an awesome feature of Google Meet that allow you to take all of your meeting participants and split them up into smaller Meets where they can work on group projects, have small group discussions, and such.

Note: The official Breakout Rooms feature is only available for people who are using the Enterprise version of the Google suite of tools. If your school does not pay for the Google tools, but instead uses the free version, you will not have the breakout rooms tool, as well as other Enterprise features. I do have a separate video where I cover an alternate way to do breakout rooms in Meet if you are using the free version which you can see here: Breakout Room Alternatives for Google Meet

However, for those who have the Enterprise version of Google Meet, I have put together a short 5-minute video on how to use the official Breakout Rooms feature. See below for the video.

Breakout Room Alternatives for Google Meet

Google Meet has an awesome built-in feature for Breakout Rooms, but unfortunately that is only available for people who are using the Enterprise version of G Suite, which means schools that pay for the Google tools. If your school uses the Enterprise version, then be sure to check out my other post and video that explains how to use the official Breakout Rooms feature here: Google Meet Breakout Rooms

However, if your school uses the free version of the Google tools, then the Breakout Rooms feature will not be available for you. So to help with this, I put together a quick 7-minute video to explain a workaround that will let you sort of make your own breakout rooms. Since this is just a workaround, it is not perfect, and it is not the only way this could be done, but it is a good option. This is just my suggestion for an alternative way to do Breakout Rooms, but please feel free to share your workarounds in the comments.

See below for the video and related resource links.