This 90 minute live stream event showcased some of Google Education’s upcoming features. It included ….
- Opening remarks from Sundar Pichai, CEO, Alphabet
- Information on Learning Across Google
- A message about Google’s Commitment to Education
- Material on new features and a rebrand of G Suite for Education
- A preview of new features coming to Google Classroom
- Information on updates to Google Meet
- A section on Chromebooks
- Information on Accessibility
- Thoughts on the Future of Education (Raising the Bar)
Reflection
Some of the information was both useful and relevant and it was great to see which new features will be made available to schools in the near future. Some of the upcoming features quite exciting as we have been waiting a while for them to be implemented.
I really enjoyed the short videos that separated each major section as these showed how Google for Education has been used around the world to facilitate teaching and learning during the COVID pandemic.
The material around Chromebooks was of less interest as they are still quite limited for the purposes of teaching a senior Programming / Design course. As much of the accessibility information related to Chromebooks, this section was also not that relevant.
The session was worthwhile though as it was interesting (and inspirational) seeing how Google Classroom is being used in other countries. One of the surprising facts is that in the past year, Google for Education use has surged from 40 million to over 150 million.