Google for Education

The Keyword from Google is highlighting some new updates they released over the summer. Below you will find a few of the highlights to easily try out in your classrooms. 

Google Chrome

• Reading Mode 

  • Reading Mode is a new panel in the browser to help users as they read, with a clean version of just the text from the web page, with images, videos, and other elements removed. As needed, the reader can change the font, the size of the text, the spacing between the lines, the color of the text and background, and the width of the reading panel. This will be a helpful option to be able to still see the original content but have an easier-to-read version on the side.

• Image to Text

  • • This new feature will use AI to convert images to text for PDFs in Chrome browser on ChromeOS. This will make it easier for screen readers and other accessibility tools to be able to pull out the text from otherwise inaccessible PDFs, such as PDFs that come from scanning a document.

Google Education App Hub

• • Google is now updating and rebranding it as the Google for Education App Hub. You will find 25 featured apps, as well as access to the full list of tools that work with Google Workspace, as well as helpful training materials for each.

Google Meet Updates

• 1000 Max Attendees

  • Google Meet is expanding to allow for up to 1,000 attendees in a meeting. To help reduce meeting distractions and give the meeting host more control, 500 of the attendees can be "contributors" and can fully participate in meetings, while the other 500 can be "viewers" and can interact with polls and Q&A but can’t share audio or video.

• Tile Pairing

  • Coming soon you will be able to pair your tile in Google Meet with someone else’s so if one of you speaks, you’re both highlighted. This can make meetings more inclusive when using voice or sign-language interpreters or when two people are presenting together.