The 2021-2022 school year is in full swing. Now the teachers are back in the building, we’ve heard the top questions that Admins are being asked.
Amplified IT as a google technical consultancy typically focuses on training administrators and ensuring that Google environments are set up with best practices in mind.
If you’ve purchased Google Workspace for Education Plus, your teachers have new features at their disposal. So, what exactly do teachers have that they didn’t have before? Let’s answer that first.
General
What features do teachers have with an assigned Workspace Plus license?
Teachers have access to the following features with Workspace Plus:
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International dial-in
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Larger Meets – up to 250
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Recordings
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Attendance Reports
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Cloud Search
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Q&A and Polls
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Breakout Rooms
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Noise cancellation
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Live Streaming
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Unlimited Originality Reports
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Student to Student Matches with Originality Reports
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Roster Sync w/Clever
Note that your Google Admin will need to specifically configure recordings, attendance reports, Live streaming, originality reports, student-to-student matches for originality reports. Cloud Search is a core application and on by default.
Meet Features
Why am I not getting a copy of my attendance after my Google Meet is over?
If Attendance reports are configured in the Admin console, you will get an attendance report when the Meet is over if you have 5 or more participants in the Meet. If participants are under 5, you will not get the attendance report. You also need to ensure that you were the organizer of the Meet and all participants have left the meeting to receive the report. The data included in attendance reports include the participants’ names, emails, length of time on call, and join / exit times.
Why is Google Meet being so slow/choppy/lagging?
Many times it is not directly related to Google Meet itself. When in a Meet, click Settings and then Troubleshooting & Help Menu.
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When looking at the troubleshooting menu, High CPU can be an indicator of too many features being used. It is best to turn off backgrounds, reduce tile view, or use spotlight, mute A/V.
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Connection delays are signs of low bandwidth or poor connections.
Can I use live streaming outside of our Google domain?
Not yet! But it is on the roadmap for the end of the year to be able to use live streaming with external participants such as parents or the school community.
Google Classroom features
Where can I turn on Originality Reports and what is the student experience?
When creating an assignment in Google Classroom, you can turn on Originality Reports by checking the check plagiarism (originality) box.
Students can scan their work 3 times prior to submitting the assignment. The report shows students if they have incorrectly copied a web source. Teachers can also see the Originality Report when grading the assignment. Originality Reports will show the link to the sources detected.
Can originality reports find plagiarism beyond just web sources?
If the organization’s Google admin turns on student-to-student matches, originality reports will scan the in-domain work from your entire organization. The teacher can access the student match that was internal. However, when the student gets the originality report, it only indicates which web matches were plagiarized, not the internal submissions.
Is there a way to automatically create my Google Classroom Classes?
With Workspace Plus, your admin can configure Clever Roster Sync. It will create Google Classroom classes from SIS data and sync rosters throughout the school year. If you are looking for a way to sync both rosters and guardians, check out Amplified IT’s Little SIS Premium. Here is our side-by-side comparison of the two.
Other features
What is Cloud Search and is it something I should be learning to use?
Cloud search is a unified search experience across Google Workspace. If you go to cloudsearch.google.com you can search Calendar, Contacts, Drive, Gmail, Groups, Keep, classic Sites and new Sites. A great way to use it is to search by student name, you can see all work shared and mail between you. It does have to be configured by an admin so it may/may not be on depending on your organization.
Can you change ownership of a needed file?
If you need access to a file from a colleague that has left the organization or access to student files, your Google admin can surface Drive items used within the last 180 days. They can add users, change ownership, and permissions if needed.
What’s on the roadmap for Workspace Plus for teachers specifically?
Some great features are on the way! For Meet there will be live translated captions, close captions with streaming, public live streaming, and meeting transcripts along with improvements to the Breakout Room experience. In Google Classroom, admins will be able to pre-install add-ons to multiple teachers at once. The pre-install feature is starting with nine partners including Adobe Spark for Education, BookWidgets, CK-12 Foundation, Edpuzzle, IXL, Kahoot!, Nearpod, Newsela, and SAFARI Montage, with plans to expand to many more.
Another great feature that teachers will be able to leverage in the future is document approval, which is now in beta.
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Catherine Weers
Onboarding & Engagement Consultant -
About the Author:
Catherine lives in Virginia Beach, walking distance to the Chesapeake Bay where she is Amplified IT’s Google for Education Onboarding and Engagement Consultant. Catherine joined the Amplified IT team in 2017 after serving in public schools for 13 years as a teacher in addition to various technology roles. Her current role as Onboarding and Engagement Consultant allows ample opportunity to empower schools, while sharing best practices to get the most out of the cloud solutions they adopt. In her spare time, you can find her at the beach with her family, likely chasing her 2 young daughters and petting all the dogs.