There are no new updates to share this week. Please see below for a recap of published announcements.
Previous announcements
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.
Easily see file locations in Google Drive
You can now see a file’s location information in the Search, Recent, Starred and Trash web views of Google Drive. | Learn more.
Google for Education transformation reports window open, available worldwide
Google for Education transformation reports are available for K-12 Google Workspace for Education customers worldwide, from June 1, 2022 through July 26, 2022. | Learn more.
Bringing Google Meet features to Google Duo for a single, integrated video solution
In the coming weeks, all Google Meet features will be added to the Duo app. Later this year, we’ll rename the Duo app to Google Meet, our single video communications service across Google accessible to everyone at no-cost. | Learn more.
Google for Education transformation reports are available for K-12 Google Workspace for Education customers worldwide, at no cost. Note: transformation reports are only available in English at this time.
The reporting window is open from June 1, 2022 through July 26, 2022. Returning users will notice the following improvements:
Immediate access: Google Workspace for Education super admins can log in today and immediately view their custom report. (The former three-week-long survey window has been removed.)
Realtime customization: You can now adjust settings in realtime, including your two 12 week product data reporting windows and the numbers of teachers / students in your organization. (The report will be locked for editing after July 26, 2022.)
Optional Survey: Taking the Transformation Survey is no longer a prerequisite to generate a report. The survey remains available for interested users to take through July 26, 2022.
See below for more information on generating your custom transformation report.
Who’s impacted
Admins
Why you’d use it
The transformation report is a free tool designed to help quantify your organization’s Google for Education implementation across our products and programs. Semester-based reports track usage trends over time and make it easy to understand how your organization is using Google Workspace for Education, Chromebooks, and progressing through Certification programs. Additionally, each report includes links to resources aimed to help accelerate the impact of your Google implementation.
An optional survey is also available for admins to take and share with their leadership teams to get feedback on how the organization is progressing across seven key areas of transformation (Vision, Culture, Learning Approach, Professional Development, Community Engagement, Technology, Funding & Sustainability).
Admins: Google Workspace for Education super admins can log in to the transformation report tool starting June 1st to view their custom report. Upon login, Admins should:
Customize the product reporting windows — choose the two 12 week periods of time (current and previous) that make the most sense for your organization. Graphs in the report will display data comparing usage across these two windows.
Click “View Report”
[Optional] Take and share Transformation Survey:
Survey participation is optional, but we encourage you and your leadership team to complete the survey at least once a year. Those who choose to participate in the survey will have a final version of their report available on July 29, 2022.
Transformation reports are available now for all users
Availability
Available to K-12 Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
We’re announcing a new tool for Google Classroom called practice sets, which enables educators to transform new and existing content into engaging and interactive assignments. With autograding built in, teachers can receive performance insights and snapshots into student progress and use those insights to help inform future lesson plans.
If they get stuck and need support, students will see automated hints and video suggestions, along with real time feedback on their answers. Assignments can be completed with a variety of tools for annotation, such as a mouse, stylus, touchpad, or math keyboard depending on how students work best.
When available, the beta will be globally available (note: in English only) for Google Workspace for Education Plus and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade. Education leaders can use this form to express interest in the beta.
Who’s impacted
End users
Why you’d use it
Every student learns in their own way, though practice and specific feedback helps us all learn more effectively. In large classes, it can be challenging for teachers to support their students' individual journeys. Based on feedback we heard from our users, we’re introducing practice sets for Google Classroom.
Educators can easily transform their own teaching content into interactive assignments. Students get real-time feedback as they complete practice sets, so they know whether they’re on the right track. When they’re struggling to solve a problem, they can get hints through visual explainers and videos.
With practice sets, educators can more easily get insight into which concepts need more instruction time and who could use extra support, giving them quick performance insights to shape future lesson plans. Visit the Keyword Blog to learn more about practice sets.
Availability
When available, practice sets will be available to Google Workspace Education Plus (formerly G Suite Enterprise for Education) and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers
Teachers can now schedule posts across multiple classes in Google Classroom on the web. Teachers can use the assignment-scheduling flow to configure the: Due date Post date Topic
Note: The rest of the assignment will remain the same Once set, they can select which classes should receive the post and when it should be published:
Published immediately
Published at a certain time
Save as draft
Who’s impacted
End users
Why it matters
This update to the scheduling function will make it quicker and easier for teachers to assign classwork across numerous classes, saving them valuable time and simplifying class planning and management.
Additional details
There is no additional cost associated with this new functionality.
Once an assignment has been scheduled, teachers can change the assignment within each individual class.
Note that selecting “Copy settings to all” will delete any previously entered settings for the assignment.
If a co-teacher schedules a post to one or multiple classes, they will be the owner of the associated Google Drive assets along with the course owner.
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
Available to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus customers.
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers
Google for Education transformation reports are available for K-12 Google Workspace for Education customers worldwide, at no additional cost. The next reporting window is open as of November 2, 2021 and will close December 10, 2021.
Additionally, we’ve introduced several improvements for transformation reports:
Immediate access: Starting today, super admins for any Google Workspace for Education domain can login to view their transformation report. We've removed the waiting period between logging in to request a report and receiving a report.
Realtime updates: You can now adjust the product data windows and the number of teachers and students you expect to be using Google products. This will allow you to view real time updates for your report regarding what’s most useful to you. any time between November 2, 2021 and December 10, 2021. (The report will be locked for editing after December 10)
Ease of use: Reports are now available immediately upon login without having to request one in advance. Additionally, reports can now be customized with updates in real time any time Nov 2- Dec 10.
See below for more information on generating your transformation report.
Who’s impacted
Admins
Why you’d use it
The transformation report is a free tool designed to help quantify your organization’s Google for Education implementation across our products and programs. Semester-based reports track usage trends over time and make it easy to understand how your organization is using Google Workspace for Education, Chromebooks, and progressing through Certification programs.
Based on usage information and survey responses, you’ll receive tailored recommendations and resources from Google for Education to help you drive more impact across your organization.
You’ll be able to make adjustments to your report any time between November 2, 2021 and December 10, 2021, after which the report will be locked for editing.
Take and share the transformation survey [optional]
Survey participation is optional, but we encourage you and your leadership team to complete the survey at least once a year to reflect on your digital transformation and receive customized feedback.
Transformation reports are available now for all users.
Availability
Available to K-12 Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Education Plus, and the Teaching and Learning Upgrade customers
Not available to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
We’ve added several new features to Google Meet in Classroom, making it easier and more secure:
The Class Meet link is now accessible on the side of the class stream, so students can easily join and teachers can manage the link from the stream.
Students will be directed to a waiting room until a teacher has officially joined the class Meet link.
Guests not on the class roster will have to “ask to join” and be admitted by the teacher before they can participate, so no unintended participants join the meetings.
All designated co-teachers for a class will automatically be co-hosts in the meeting. This moderation tool will enable co-hosts to start the meeting with the same Meet link without the class teacher needing to be present.
Who’s impacted
Teachers and student end users
Why it matters
These features make it easier for teachers to manage meetings, help prevent unintended meeting participants from joining meetings, and generally help meetings run more smoothly. Overall, teachers and students will have a smoother and more secure experience while using Google Classroom and Google Meet.
Additional details
Please note that after a Meet link is generated, if a co-teacher is added or removed, you must regenerate the Meet link to update the host status. We are working on changing this functionality so the host status auto-updates, and hope to implement the change by the end of the year.
You can follow this Forum post to stay updated on the progress of the rollout, get additional tips, FAQs and other useful updates on this launch.
Getting started
Admins: There is no admin control for this feature, but Google Meet must be turned on for these features to be available in Google Classroom. Learn more about how to set up and manage Meet and use Meet for distance learning.
End users: These features will be ON by default for new meetings created in Google Classroom. Users with existing class Meet links should reset the link to get this updated functionality. Visit the Help Center to learn more about starting a video meeting for education.
Available as a core service to Google Workspace Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus.
Available as an additional service to Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
We’re making two enhancements for Google Classroom, which will help Google Workspace for Education admins surface information about how Classroom is being used in their organization. Specifically, we’re introducing:
Classroom audit logs in the Admin console
Classroom activity logs in BigQuery, and Data Studio dashboards.
See below for more information and availability.
Who’s impacted
Admins
Why it’s important
By surfacing Classroom audit logs, Admins can quickly pinpoint who did what in their domain, such as: who removed a student from a class, who archived a class on a certain date, and more.
We hope this makes it easier for admins to quickly look up common activities in their organization and quickly act on scenarios where support may be needed.
Available to Google Workspace Education Fundamentals, Education Plus, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, and Enterprise Plus Frontline, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
BigQuery Logs + Data Studio Templates
Available to Google Workspace Education Standard and Education Plus customers
Not available to Google Google Workspace Essentials, Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Frontline, Education Fundamentals, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Nonprofits, as well as G Suite Basic and Business customers
Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are fully launched or in the process of rolling out (rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete), launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time (if not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete), and available to all Google Workspace and G Suite customers.
Delegate Information is now available in Gmail Log Search Email log search now indicates when an email was sent on behalf of the user by a delegate. In cases where a delegate sent the email, the delegate will be listed, along with the sender, in message details in email log search. Delegate information will only be available on emails sent after this change rolls out. | Available to all Google Workspace with Gmail enabled. | Learn more.
New font in Workspace improves accessibility for vision impaired Now there's a new font in Workspace optimized for vision impaired users. When you create or want to read a document, set the font to Atkinson Hyperlegible for improved legibility.
Previous announcements
The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.
Improvements for braille mode in Google Docs provide a richer, more interactive experience
We've improved how suggestions are announced in braille mode in Google Docs. You’ll now hear detailed suggestion information inline with the rest of the text — this includes whether the suggestion is an insertion or deletion, and the author of the suggestion. | Learn more.
Disabling File Transfer in Google Chat
Admins can now disable or limit file sharing for their users in Chat. Specifically, admins
will be able to specify controls within and outside their organization, and will be able to choose between restricting all files, allowing images only, or allowing all files. | Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, Enterprise Essentials | Learn more.
Alert Center enrichment with VirusTotal threat context now generally available
Earlier this year, we pre-announced an integration between the Alert Center and VirusTotal. Currently, the Google Workspace Alert Center provides admins with actionable, real-time alerts and insights regarding security-related activity in their domain. With the VirusTotal (now part of Google Cloud) integration, admins have the ability to dig into their alerts at a deeper level. | Available to Google Workspace Business Plus, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education Fundamentals and Education Plus customers. | Learn More.
Use dynamic security groups for group based policies
Google Workspace admins can now use dynamic groups to manage policies for their users in the Admin console. Previously, it was only possible to apply these policies to static groups and OUs. | Available to Google Workspace Enterprise Plus, Education Plus, and Cloud Identity Premium customers. | Learn more.
Workspace for Education Plus now syncs Google Classroom courses and rosters with Student Information Systems
U.S. school districts with Google Workspace for Education Plus will be able to automatically set up Google Classroom courses and keep rosters in sync with their Student Information System (SIS). IT admins will do the setup via Clever, meaning teachers will no longer need to manually create classes and invite students to join them. | Learn More.
Enhancements to Google Voice
We’ve made several enhancements to Google Voice, including information and troubleshooting tips for missed calls, the ability to easily redial dropped calls, the ability to delete SMS messages in bulk, and an option to show your Google Voice number as the caller ID when forwarding calls. | Learn more.
Search within a folder in Google Drive on iOS
You can now search for content inside a specific folder in Google Drive on iOS. Simply navigate to the folder you want to search within and select the search bar — you’ll see a list of suggested folders, documents, and users to refine your search results. Select the folder chip before typing your search query. | Learn more.
Assign SSO profile to organizational units or groups with the new SAML Partial SSO beta
Currently, you can configure to authenticate your users using a third-party identity provider — this configuration applies to all users within your domain. Now, you have the option to specify groups or organizational units (OUs) to authenticate a subset of your users using Google. This feature is available as an open beta. | Learn more.
New enrollment privilege and naming updates for Google Meet hardware in the Admin console
We are making two improvements to the admin controls for Google Meet hardware: a new enrollment privilege admins and updates for hardware management in the Admin console. | Learn more.
Use the new Google Meet web app for better meetings on desktop devices
We’ve launched a new Google Meet standalone web app. This Progressive Web Application (PWA) has all the same features as Google Meet on the web, but as a standalone app it’s easier to find and use, and it streamlines your workflow by eliminating the need to switch between tabs. | Learn more.
U.S. school districts with Google Workspace for Education Plus will be able to automatically set up Google Classroom courses and keep rosters in sync with their Student Information System (SIS). IT admins will do the setup via Clever, meaning teachers will no longer need to manually create classes and invite students to join them. Note that this will not overwrite Classroom courses that teachers create individually.
Who’s impacted
Admins and end users
Why you’d use it
This feature, created in partnership with Clever, improves the interoperability and integration between Google Classroom and most major SIS in the U.S. It saves teachers time with class setup and keeps Classroom classes and SIS rosters in sync with less manual and duplicative work.
Getting started
Admins: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled in the Admin console under Classroom settings. After that, go to Clever, link to the Google Classroom rostering app & follow the setup wizard.
End users: This feature will be OFF by default and can be enabled by your admin. There is no end user setting for this feature. When your admin sets up rostering via Clever, teachers will receive an invite within Classroom to teach the class with the roster pre-populated.
Every day, more than a billion people come to Google to find answers or discover something new. Our Learning & Education team works to fuel that curiosity and help people build knowledge by connecting them to great learning experiences through our products — whether it's Search or YouTube, Google Classroom or Chromebooks.
During the pandemic, people turned to technology more than ever to help them learn and teach from anywhere, and this accelerated our desire to do even more with our technology to help. Just this past year, COVID-19 led school closures disrupted the continuity of education for over 320 million students across India. This past year, the education community has inspired us with their creativity and resilience -- this ability to learn, and teach, from anywhere is more important now than ever, and won’t end when the pandemic does. During these months, we have been honored to launch several initiatives to help educators and students to better make this transition, and are glad to recap a few key milestones.
After launching our Teach from Anywhere hub in April last year, we have since extended it to eight Indian languages (including English,) and it has helped more than 9 Lakh people to get started with remote teaching. Apart from these web-based training resources, we also believed it important to help impart hands-on training. So when CBSE, Kendriya Vidyalaya and the education ministries of Maharashtra and Delhi State Governments embarked on large-scale digital capacity building efforts, we worked with them to provide knowledge and access to Google for Education tools like Google Classroom, Google Meet and more. Till date, over 5 lakh teachers have attended these webinars that teach the use of digital tools for pedagogy and skills development.
But nothing has been more heartening than seeing teachers from rural areas reporting higher levels of satisfaction, peer recognition, and comfort with technology after these training sessions. One such example is Azmat, an English teacher from Shirdi Urdu High School in Maharashtra, among the many schools that had to shut down in-person teaching last year. Watch the inspiring story of how he and his students continued to keep the education momentum going, even in these challenging times.
The next era of our education products
Today, during our Learning with Google event, we shared our commitment to this community and provided a glimpse into some of the 50+ new, upcoming features across our education products that we hope will support even more learning. We want to enable every leader to bring innovation to their schools and universities, and give them the peace of mind that they’re investing in products that are secure and flexible to their needs.
We are glad to announce the next era of G Suite for Education — Google Workspace for Education – which offers educators and teachers even more choice and control. Google Workspace for Education includes all the products you already use, like Classroom, Meet, Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and many more. Our free edition G Suite for Education will be renamed to Google Workspace for Education Fundamentals. If you’re currently using this edition, you won't see any changes besides a new name and new features.
More than 170 million students and educators worldwide rely on our suite of tools, and we are bringing many new helpful features to Google Classroom and Google Meet. Let’s take a look at some of these:
Google Classroom
Offline mode: We’re making the Classroom Android app work offline, or with intermittent connections. Students will be able to start their work offline, review their assignments, open Drive attachments, and write assignments in Google Docs — all without an internet connection.
Improved mobile grading: We're improving how educators can grade in the Classroom Android app. We’ve seen more and more teachers around the world using mobile devices for giving feedback on the go, and these improvements will make it much easier for instructors to switch between student submissions, grade work while viewing an assignment, and share feedback.
Classroom add-ons: Having tools that work well together is so important. Coming later this year to teachers using Education Plus or Teaching and Learning Upgrade, Classroom add-ons let teachers integrate their favourite third-party EdTech tools and content directly into the Classroom interface, all without any extra log-ins.
Google Meet
Multiple moderators: Later this year, meetings will support multiple hosts, making it easier to partner with others helping facilitate the class. All hosts will have access to moderation controls, so they can share the load of managing who can join, controlling who can use the chat or present their screen, and more.
End meeting for all: Teachers will have the option to "End meeting for all", so they have complete control, and can prevent students from staying on a call after the teacher has left — including in breakout rooms.
Mute all: To make it easier to teach without interruption, educators will be able to easily mute all participants at once, and decide whether students can unmute themselves or not.
These and many other features will be rolling out in the coming months and over the course of this year. To get the full scoop on these announcements, check out Learning with Google, our global event that streamed in 15 languages, where you can hear a lot more directly from our team. For more details also see the new tools coming to Classroom and the new features coming to Meet.
Despite unforeseen obstacles, teaching and learning continued over the past year, all thanks to the heroic dedication of teachers like Azmat, of education leaders, as well as students and their families. We look forward to working together to reimagine learning and push the boundaries of what is possible, so that everyone has access to the quality learning experiences they deserve.
Posted by Bani Dhawan, Head of Education - South Asia
