What's New in Google? September 2023

Catch up on everything new in Google Workspace for Education from September 2023, and see great ideas and resources!

Below is the recorded video from our September 2023 Google User Meeting, along with the meeting agenda with all the awesome resources and Google 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 Workspace news and features
• Provide tutorials, demonstrations, and how-to’s
• Share best practices of how Google Workspace 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 September 2023 meeting:

FigJam for Schools Webinars

Google has recently announced that they are shutting down Jamboard by the end of 2024.

Thankfully Figma has partnered with Google to provide their tools absolutely free to educators and students. 

One of their tools is FigJam which is an advanced collaborative whiteboarding tool with features including stamps, emotes, stickies, shapes, connectors, drawing tools, plugins, interactive widgets, and much more.

You and your students can use FigJam to:

• Brainstorm ideas for projects and assignments with sticky notes, shapes, and freehand drawing.
• Organize thoughts and research with decision trees, diagrams, and mind maps.
• Collaborate with classmates and teachers in real time with feedback and comments.
• Plan and run group projects, presentations, and more.

To help you get started with FigJam, and get the most out of it, I will be hosting two free webinars in October. Whether you have never heard of FigJam, or if you want to dig deeper into it, these live-streamed training sessions will be super helpful.

See below for details on each webinar and the registration information. If you are unable to attend live, the sessions will be recorded and shared out afterwards. I look forward to learning with you!

The Bard's Tale: Google AI Tools in Education

Google has continued to roll out more and more new updates for Bard and their other AI products. 

It is exciting to test out these new features to see how they can benefit schools with productivity, content creation, teaching, learning, and more.

I recently recorded a 1-hour webinar where I did a deep dive into Google's artificial intelligence tools. In the webinar we explore:

• 🏛️ Classic Google AI Tools
• 🚀 New Google AI Tools such as Bard, AI Search tools, Notebook LM, and Duet AI for Workspace
• 🔮 Upcoming Google AI Tools

See below to access the video and the session resource document with all the links and information.

Fabulous Features of Google Docs

Google Docs is a powerful word processing program with loads of useful features, and Google frequently adds new tools and options.

Even if you use Docs often, you may not use all of the features, or even be aware of some of them.

Recently I went through all the menus, settings, tools, and options in Docs to try to compile a list of some of my favorite features. I ended up with a list of 23 fabulous features of Google Docs which I am sharing below.

If you are new to Google Docs, or just a casual user, this list will help introduce you to the features that make Docs unique and powerful. Or if you are a seasoned user, hopefully you will pick up a few new ideas or reminders for tools that you can make more use of.

Either way, be sure to let me know what features I have left off the list that you would recommend, as well as how you use those features. I am excited to learn from you!

Conker Your Quizzes With Mote

I recently had the privilege to present a virtual session for MoteCon 2023 on how to use Conker, which is Mote's new AI-powered tool for creating assessments.

Last year at MoteCon 2022 I presented a session on using Mote to create an interactive digital soundboard in Google Slides for your class. You can see that recording from last here: Creating a Soundboard with Google Slides

With artificial intelligence being all the rage right now it made perfect sense this year to focus on their new Conker AI tool. In short:

• Conker is a tool from the makers of Mote, which uses AI to generate quizzes.
• The quiz can come from a topic, or source material, or quiz bank.
• Questions can include multiple choice, fill-in-the-blank, and read & respond.
• Quizzes can be exported to Google Forms.

See below for the 30-minute recorded video all about using Conker to create quizzes, and also how to use Mote on top of that to add your recorded voice to the Google Form quiz that is created.