We made it to the end of the school year - in person with students all year! As you finish your grading and pack up your classroom for the year, be sure to congratulate yourself on a year well done. Hopefully you'll be able to enjoy some rest and relaxation over the summer to recharge your inner batteries. If you are open to enhancing your digital skills this summer, consider v
isiting the Google Teacher Center and taking the Fundamentals and Advanced training, and possibly even becoming a Certified Google Educator. There are also other training modules on this site, such as Digital Citizenship and Safety, and Tools for Diverse Learners, among several others. Even if you don't wish to take the certification exams, the courses will help enhance your digital skills. Above all, enjoy the summer!
If you should receive an email explaining you've subscribed to a phone streaming service, don't fall for it. They'll ask you to call a number. The customer service rep at the call center will ask you to download a file, which will deliver malware attacks, including ransomware.
Beware of text messages claiming to be from US AID.
If you have an Amazon Echo, Ring Security cameras and/or tile trackers, you'll want to read this before Amazon automatically shares part of your WiFi with others.
Protect yourself and take more control over how others tag you.
Need to take a screenshot? Check. Need to copy and paste more than one thing at a time? Check. Wondering how much life is left in your laptop battery? Check. Need a little back up space? Check. Want to make your touchpad easier to use? Check.
Google Workspace for Education Updates:
Google Meet is getting a facelift and some new features. You should begin seeing these changes anytime between now and two weeks. While you will have the option to revert to the old look, that option only lasts until June 11, when the new look will become permanent for all. If you are using any Meet extensions, you will want to disable or remove them, as they will affect how Meet works. The new look and features will include:
- Hover over your video feed for options between a tile in the grid or a floating picture. You can also resize, reposition and hide the video feed.
- Your self-view tile appears in the bottom right of the grid to put more video feeds at eye-level.
- See what you are presenting while in the Meet.
- Unpin the shared content so you can see more and larger video feeds.
- Partipant names will always be visible, even in large Meets.
- Meet dial-in codes, attachments, participants list, chat and other activities will be at the bottom right to create more space for viewing people and content.
- Controls are consolidated in one place with descriptions available on hover.
- The leave call button is moved away from microphone and camera buttons to prevent accidental hang ups.
- Bottom bar is always visible.
- The speaker's tile is outlined in blue.
- Mute indicators are subdued to reduce visual distraction.
- When there are more participants than can be shown, a tile is added to show who's on the call.
- Before joining a Meet, you will see a banner that says, "Meet has a new look".
- If Meet does not work properly, remove any Chrome extensions that work with Meet.
Within the next month (or next school year, for those of you who will be out for the summer) you will begin to see new notifications during Google Meets.
- Gentle Notifications: When Meet detects a performance issue that is impacting your meeting quality, a notification bubble will appear describing the issue. There will also be a red dot on the More menu, directing you to open Troubleshooting & Help for more information about the issue.
- Personalized Troubleshooting Recommendations: When Meet detects a performance issue, opening the Troubleschooting & Help menu will show you suggestions for the issues you are currently experiencing.
- Quick Actions: Some troubleshooting suggestions will appear as single click buttons to turn on/off a feature to help with the problem.
Google Sheets just got a comments sidebar, similar to what you see in Docs. All the comments will appear in a new sidebar, and you'll be able to scroll through them, or filter the comments to find specific feedback. You'll be able to access the comments sidebar by clicking the comment icon, Using Open All Comments inthe Sheet tab, and clicking Open from any comment in a cell. You should see this feature in the next two weeks.
Full details can be found here.
Learn how to use this handy new feature.
