Kia ora Education Whanau of NZ
As we near the end of September I thought I should send out a quick update for the Edu Community in New Zealand. I have embedded many Links to information here to cut down on the length of this post.
It was over a month ago that there was the Virtual Edu event – The Anywhere School where the many product updates were announced that we are now seeing rolling out. The whole schedule is now available for on demand viewing at the above link
The largest updates have been to Meet which remains a free part of GSuite for Edu but will revert to the regular free version on Sept 30th. This means 100 participants per Meet and Temporary recordings will be introduced (these will live in your drive for 30 days) any existing recordings will remain in the drive they are currently in indefinitely. The main updates to meet are to do with the release of Background Blur as well as Jamboard Integration inside Meet and the much requested participant controls eg screen sharing and chat functionality
Within Google Classroom, Originality reports and feedback/marking rubrics continue to be a very popular and useful tool and allow for targeted learning based feedback and authentic work habits.
For information on Family link, the excellent AI/AR updates to Google Lens and the updated info for guardians and Parents there was a very good blog post on the Keyword Blog. As well as the updated info for Admins with some admin console updates and Betas available to schools.
The Google for Education Pilot Interest Form
The Google for Education Pilot Program is a global program that provides K-12 schools and organizations early access to products and features across various Google tools to help inform the future of Google’s products. If you’re interested in being contacted about future pilot opportunities, and a member from the Google for Education team will reach out to you shortly with more details.
As always, keep an eye on the GEGnz Facebook page and the GEGnz Google Site for upcoming events for Aotearoa Educators