Tag Archives: Google Workspace for Education

Google Vids is now available for Google Workspace for Education, providing easy video creation for teaching and learning

What’s changing

Earlier this year, we announced Google Vids would soon empower educators and students to easily create and collaborate with video. Today, we’re excited to announce the general availability of Google Vids for Education Plus and Gemini for Workspace customers.

Vids can help deepen learning opportunities, up-level instruction, and inspire the next generation of storytellers in a variety of scenarios, for example: 
  • Educators can support diverse learning styles and help students retain information with instructional videos and deep dives on complex concepts. 
  • Students can work on video projects and review recorded lessons. 
  • Education leaders can easily incorporate video in their school newsletters and create internal training videos for staff. 
Similar to other productivity tools like Docs, Sheets, and Slides, Vids includes a simple, easy-to-use interface and the ability to collaborate in real-time and share projects securely from your browser. You can easily get started with a variety of templates organized by use cases to create a new video. From there, you can add motion with animations, transitions, and photo effects, and customize your video using the Vids royalty free education-friendly stock content library or your own media directly from Google Drive or Google Photos. Vids is also integrated with Workspace tools like Google Classroom, empowering educators to easily assign video projects or post video explainers right to their students. As detailed here, Google Vids is a core Workspace Service covered under the Google Workspace for Education terms of service. 

Users 18 years and older with a Gemini Education or Education Premium add-on will also have access to Gemini in Vids, giving them the ability to produce polished videos even faster with the help of AI. ‘Help me create’ can generate a fully editable initial storyboard using a prompt and a doc from your Google Drive. After choosing a style, Gemini pieces together your video draft with suggested scenes, including recommended stock media, text, scripts per scene, and even a background music track. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: 
  • End users: 
    • To start, open Google Vids and choose an option to create a new video. You can create a new video or make a copy of an existing video for editing. 
    • You can use Vids on your computer with the two most recent versions of these browsers: 
    • Dive into Google Vids with our free, self-paced online training course, designed specifically for educators and available now in the Google for Education Learning Center. You can also leverage this one pager to get a quick summary of what you can do with Vids. 
    • Currently, Vids is available in the user’s local language, but the AI features (e.g. Help me create a video, read-along teleprompter) and templates are only available in English at this time. 
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about getting started with Google Vids. 
    • Note: Create and copy access is available for Education Plus and Gemini for Google Workspace customers, while view and collaborate access is available to anyone with a Google Workspace for Education license. 

Rollout pace 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Education Plus 
  • Customers with a Gemini Education or Education Premium add-on 

Resources 

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – August 30, 2024

2 New updates

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if 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.


The AppSheet Admin Console is now available in public preview
For the first time, Workspace admins will have visibility into the users, apps and licenses associated with their AppSheet users via the AppSheet Admin Console. Previously, these advanced monitoring capabilities were limited to AppSheet Enterprise customers. Now all Workspace admins with the AppSheet service privilege can use this data to gain a deeper understanding about how their users are interacting with AppSheet. With the AppSheet Admin Console, you can view all the app users across any of your organization’s apps, review the most popular apps and creators, and more. Admins can also take actions like exporting a list of accounts, users, apps, and licenses for their organization or set the role of users in their organization. Eligible customers can access the AppSheet Admin Console using this direct link or clicking out from Apps > Google Workspace > Settings for AppSheet in the Workspace Admin Console. | The open beta for the AppSheet Admin Console is available now for AppSheet Enterprise customers and AppSheet Core entitled customers. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about using the AppSheet Admin Console.
The AppSheet Admin Console

Google Workspace for Education users can now set and share personal pronouns and name pronunciation
Google Workspace for Education admins of K-12 and higher education institutions can now give their students the option to set their pronouns from their Google Account at aboutme.google.com. This option is OFF by default and can be enabled for all users or a subset of them (such as for a specific location or class). User-defined pronouns will appear in personal information cards displayed when hovering over or clicking someone’s profile photo across Workspace apps like Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Chat, and Drive. Pronouns will also appear in Google Contacts, accessed by clicking “Open detailed view” from the personal information cards. | Pronouns are rolling out now to Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains. | The ability to add name pronunciation will be available by the end of Q3, 2024. | Available to all Google Workspace for Education customers. | Visit the Help Center to learn more about allowing Directory users to change their pronouns and changing pronouns in your Google Account settings.
EDU - personal pronouns and name pronunciation


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.


Automate your workflows on Google Chat with IFTTT and UKG Flow integrations 
Following the announcement at Google Cloud Next 2024, we’re excited to introduce Google Chat integrations with IFTTT and UKG Flow. | Learn more about Chat integrations with IFTTT and UKG Flow. 

Picture-in-picture in Google Meet will now open automatically when switching tabs
Picture-in-picture mode will now automatically trigger when you switch tabs during a meeting. | Learn more about picture-in-picture in Meet. 

Business Starter customers will soon have access to shared drives 
Business Starter will officially have access to shared drives starting mid-September. When shared drives are made available to Business Starter customers, all users will be able to create shared drives by default. If this default behavior is undesired, admins can update their settings before Business Starter users gain access to the feature starting on September 23, 2024. | Learn more about shared drives for Business Starter. 

Reply to emails in Gmail faster on Android devices 
You can now reply to emails directly from the bottom of the conversation, without opening a new screen, making it easier to reference the email you’re replying to. | Learn more about replying to emails on Android. 

Upload additional types of documents to Gemini (gemini.google.com) for insights and analysis 
Google Workspace users with a Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education or Education Premium license can now upload a variety of files from Google Drive or locally from your device into Gemini. | Learn more about document upload with Gemini. 

“Take notes for me” in Google Meet is now available 
“Take notes for me” is an AI-powered feature in Google Meet that automatically takes notes, allowing you to focus on discussion, collaboration, and presentation during your meetings. | Learn more about “Take notes for me” 

Google Meet provides consolidated email for all meeting artifacts 
Currently, Google Meet sends an email for each type of meeting artifact initiated in a meeting, including meeting recordings, meeting transcripts, Gemini notes with “take notes for me,” live streams and more. Going forward, you’ll receive one email consolidating these artifacts. | Learn more about Meet’s meeting artifacts. 

Customize Gemini (gemini.google.com) for your specific needs with Gems 
Gems are now available to Google Workspace customers with a Gemini Business, Enterprise, Education, or Education Premium add-on. | Learn more about Gems.

Gmail Q&A: A new way of searching your inbox with Gemini on Android devices
Gmail Q&A feature is rolling out now on Android devices and coming soon to iOS. | Learn more about Gemini in Gmail.

Additional data protection in Gemini (gemini.google.com) when using a school account is now available
Earlier this year, we brought Gemini for Google Workspace to education communities with two new paid add-ons. At that time, we announced that educators and students 18 years and older who did not have a Gemini Education license would soon get added data protection when using Gemini (gemini.google.com) as an Additional Service with their school accounts. Beginning this week, that added data protection is now available — free of charge. | Learn more about data protection in Gemini. 


Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.



Rapid Release Domains: 
Scheduled Release Domains: 
Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains: 

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).  

Additional data protection in Gemini (gemini.google.com) when using a school account is now available

What’s changing 

Earlier this year, we brought Gemini for Google Workspace to education communities with two new paid add-ons. At that time, we announced that educators and students 18 years and older who did not have a Gemini Education license would soon get added data protection when using Gemini (gemini.google.com) as an Additional Service with their school accounts. Coming soon, we will have Gemini as an Additional Service with these added data protections available to teen students as well. 


Beginning today, that added data protection is now available — free of charge. With added data protection, the data you share is only used for responses to your prompts and is not used to improve Gemini or other generative AI models. Added data protection is available to Google Workspace for Education users in every language and country where they can access Gemini. 


Additional details 


Getting started 

Rollout pace 

  • Added data protection is available now. 
  • Updates to the Gemini settings page in Admin Console to note the added data protection will be rolling out over the course of the next several weeks. 

Availability 

  • This update impacts Google Workspace Education Fundamentals, Standard, and Plus customers. 

Resources 

Chat safer with new settings for students in Google Chat

What’s changing 

We're introducing a new setting that enables education admins to restrict which users can create and manage members in Google Chat conversations. 


This can be useful for admins who want to prevent groups of students from initiating or adding users to a conversation. 

Chat restrictions for Education domains



Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 


Why it’s important

This is a highly-requested feature that restricts the creation of unsupervised activity among K-12 students and helps provide a safer and easier way for teachers to communicate with students. 


Getting started 

  • Admins: 
    • To restrict users from accessing features in Chat, go to the Admin console > Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat > click the Chat and Space restrictions setting > Inside the Google Chat box, search for the group of users you'd like to apply Chat restrictions to > check the box for Restrict creating direct messages, group messages, and spaces > hit Save. 
      • Note: groups can be restricted at the group level only.
    • We recommend admins enable the "automatically accept chat invitations" setting for their OU. This will ensure teachers can easily initiate messages to students that instantly deliver without the need to accept an invitation. We also recommend turning OFF Chat with external users.
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about setting up Chat restrictions for Education accounts.
  • End users: There is no end user setting for this feature.

Rollout pace 

Admin setting: 
Chat UI: 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Educators can now create new classes in Google Classroom using SIS data and import grading periods from the SIS

What’s changing 

In 2023, we introduced the ability for Google Classroom teachers to export grading periods to their Student Information System (SIS) gradebook. This helps education teams simplify student data management and complete administrative tasks faster. 


Today, we’re excited to announce the ability for teachers to create new classes by importing information such as student rosters, co-teachers, grading categories, and grading periods from their SIS. Teachers can also pull this information into newly created classes in Classroom. Along with this, we’re launching the ability for teachers to import their grading periods from their student information systems (SIS) into Classroom. Please note this feature is only available for customers using one of our current SIS partners, which will expand over time. 


Once an admin establishes a connection between their district SIS and Google Classroom, teachers can manually link new or existing Google Classroom classes to their SIS, then use the connection to import grading categories, import students rosters, import co-teachers, and starting today, import grading periods and create new classes using SIS data.

Getting started

    • If a SIS is connected by your admin:
      • Teachers can import grading periods by going to classroom.google.com > select the class > Settings > next to “Grading Periods,” click “Import from SIS.”
      • Teachers can import “full class” information by going to classroom.google.com > click “Create or join a class” > select “Create class” > in the pop-up window, click the down arrow and select your SIS class > check the items you want to import to the new class (e.g. students, co-teachers, grading periods, grade categories).
    • Visit the Help Center to learn more about using Classroom with your SIS and importing data from your SIS.

AI Classification in Google Drive is now available for the Gemini Education Premium add-on

What’s changing

We’re expanding the availability of AI Classification in Google Drive to Google Workspace for Education customers with the Gemini Education Premium add-on. Powered by privacy-preserving AI models that can be uniquely trained on the specific needs of your organization, AI classification empowers IT teams to automatically and continuously identify, classify sensitive files. The challenge with label-based policies is that they are only effective on files that are correctly identified and labeled. Further, labeling files placed a considerable manual burden on Admins. 


This is where AI Classification can help. By training models on customer-identified examples of content that match their data classification definitions, AI Classification can evaluate files where text can be extracted to see if it should be labeled. This helps enable organizations to achieve label coverage at a scale and accuracy that is very difficult to accomplish through traditional means and manual Admin intervention. Once labeled, classified files can then be further protected with existing data loss prevention (DLP) controls, lifecycle management policies, as well as audit and reporting use cases.

AI Classification in the Admin console

AI Classification in Google Docs






Getting started



Rollout pace


Availability

  • Available for Google Workspace for Education customers with the Gemini Education Premium add-on.
This feature is already available to customers with the Gemini Enterprise add-on, and via the AI Security add-on for select Google workspace customers.

Improved collaboration with Google Workspace LTI™ integrations in PowerSchool Schoology Learning

What’s changing

We recently announced that our Learning Interoperability Tools, including Assignments LTI™, Google Drive LTI™, and Meet LTI™ will be consolidated under a new brand: Google Workspace LTI™.


In order to bring the collaborative power of Google Workspace for Education to even more partners, we’re excited to announce updated Google Workspace LTI™ integrations in Schoology, a K-12 learning management system that makes it easy to implement hybrid learning and integrate your favorite teaching and learning tools. 


To simplify this experience and enable users to operate on a newer, more secure and feature-rich version, Google Workspace LTI™ in PowerSchool Schoology Learning will now use the LTI 1.3. As a result, teachers and students have access to enhanced assignment capabilities and a secure classroom-centric Google Meet experience, directly in PowerSchool Schoology Learning: 
  • With Assignments LTI™, you can: 
    • Distribute, analyze, and grade student work with Google Workspace for Education. 
    • Analyze student work submissions originality reports to save time and ensure authenticity. 
  • With Google Drive LTI™, you can securely embed and upload Google Drive files directly in PowerSchool Schoology Learning.
  • With Google Meet LTI™, you can seamlessly schedule and host secure Google Meet sessions directly within PowerSchool Schoology Learning. 
Google Workspace LTI™ integrations in PowerSchool Schoology Learning


Getting started 



Rollout pace 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Introducing Google Meet LTI™

What’s changing

To help improve remote and hybrid learning, we’re introducing Google Meet LTI™ for Canvas by Instructure and PowerSchool Schoology Learning. This builds on the existing Google Workspace Learning Interoperability Tools including Assignments LTI™ and Google Drive LTI™.


You can use Google Meet LTI™ to easily enable secure remote and hybrid learning - via video conferencing -  directly within Canvas by Instructure and PowerSchool Schoology Learning. Educators can schedule video meetings with pre-configured host controls, including recordings, transcripts, and breakout rooms*. Students can view meeting recordings and artifacts from past class sessions directly within Meet. Google Meet LTI™ is also deeply integrated with your learning management system so that only educators can start the meeting and only students in the course can join.



*Support for pre-configured breakout rooms is coming soon — we’ll provide more details on the Workspace Updates blog once that becomes available.

Getting started


Rollout pace


Availability

Available for Google Workspace:
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, the Teaching & Learning Upgrade

Resources


Bringing our Learning Interoperability Tools under one umbrella: Google Workspace LTI™

What’s changing 

Going forward, all Learning Interoperability Tools, including Assignments LTI™, and Google Drive LTI™, will be consolidated into a single category: Google Workspace LTI™. There are no functionality changes with this update, but you will notice the following: 
  • Assignments will be renamed to Google Workspace LTI™ in the Admin console and Google Workspace LTI™ in the Google Cloud console 
  • All LTI tools managed in the Admin console with the Google Workspace LTI™ service 
  • The Google Assignments Help Center will be rebranded to Google Workspace LTI™. The community forum will remain the same. 

Getting started 

Rollout pace

  • Available now.

Availability

Available for Google Workspace:
  • Education Fundamentals, Standard, Plus, and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade

Resources

Introducing Gemini offerings for Google Workspace for Education customers

What’s changing 

Beginning May 23, 2024, Google for Education customers will be able to leverage new and powerful ways of working, teaching and learning with Gemini for Google Workspace with two new paid add-ons:

  • Gemini Education is a lower price offering best suited to help education institutions get started with generative AI in Workspace, with a monthly usage limit. 

    Gemini Education will be available as an add-on for Google Workspace for Education: Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, the Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus. 

  • Gemini Education Premium: includes everything in Gemini Education, plus more advanced features like AI-powered note taking and summaries in Meet, AI-enhanced data loss prevention and more coming soon. This add-on provides full access and usage of generative AI tools in Workspace.

    Gemini Education Premium will be available as an add-on for Google Workspace for Education: Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus.

Note that Gemini for Google Workspace features are only available in English, Spanish and Portuguese* for education users over the age of 18.


Who’s impacted

Admins


Why it’s important

Gemini for Google Workspace provides access to our most capable generative AI models widely available across Workspace apps, like Docs, Gmail, Slides, and more. Inside and outside the classroom, you can use Gemini to help transform your work by:

  • Turning a blank page into a lesson plan template or a grant proposal in Docs
  • Creating an agenda for an upcoming professional development session in Sheets
  • Bringing presentations to life or illustrate a topic by creating original images in Slides, and more.

With both add-ons, you’ll also be able to chat with Gemini (gemini.google.com) safely and securely with enterprise-grade data protection. Gemini.google.com can help you speed up time-consuming tasks, like conducting research about IT security best practices to creating an alumni outreach plan. It can also help you generate fresh ideas and make learning more personal for your students, like re-leveling content or creating class exercises or assignments based on their interests.


Check out The Keyword blog for even more information about how we’re bringing Gemini to Google Workspace for Education. 


Additional details


Coming soon to Gemini for Google Workspace for Education:

Further data protections
To further our robust privacy commitments, in the future educators and students 18 years and older will have added data protection when accessing Gemini at gemini.google.com with their school accounts, free of charge. This added protection ensures that your data is not reviewed by anyone to improve our models, is not used to train artificial intelligence models, or shared with other users or institutions. These protections will be applicable to our free Gemini experience for Workspace for Education customers and will be available in 40+ languages.


As a reminder, gemini.google.com is covered under your Google Workspace for Education Terms of Service*. Check out the Workspace Blog for more information about how we’re protecting your Google Workspace data in the era of Generative AI.


OpenStax and Data Commons extensions
Soon, you’ll be able to use Gemini in combination with OpenStax and Data Commons, along with guided practice quizzes to help people learn more confidently and with trusted sources. For example you can ask OpenStax to discuss the scientific significance of solar eclipses” to pull in accurate, trustworthy responses based on Rice University’s OpenStax educational resources. Or you can leverage Data Commons to visualize data about complex topics like climate change, jobs, economics, and more. You’ll also be able to work through guided practice quizzes and receive conversational feedback on each of your responses. We’ll provide more information on The Keyword and the Workspace Updates blog when this functionality becomes available.


Piloting Gemini in Classroom
We're also piloting Gemini in Classroom with new lesson planning features that are informed by LearnLM, our new family of models fine-tuned for learning, based on Gemini and grounded in educational research. See here for more information on joining the Google for Education Pilot Program.


Getting started

Rollout pace

  • The Gemini Education and Gemini Education Premium add-ons will be available beginning May 23, 2024

Resources


*Spanish and Portuguese currently have a limited feature set — learn more.
*See here for more information on the terms of service if you’re using gemini.google.com with a personal Google account.