Chrome Unboxed  | Guest Contributor

As a part of the Anywhere School 2021 event, Google has announced several updates to its Meet video software that will soon make it more secure. The company continues its relentless barrage of awesome updates for the hybrid classroom that was born and thrived out of the result of the global pandemic. Here is a rundown of some of the updates

Over the next few months, meetings initiated from Google Classroom will have more safety and security measures in place. For example, every teacher and co-teacher will be meeting hosts by default, and once at least one teacher is present in a Meet, any and all students who are also in the call (who are on the Classroom roster) will be automatically admitted into the meeting. If a teacher is not yet present (now that teachers are hosts by default) students will be placed into a waiting room instead where they can’t interact with others.

Additionally, when a host ends a breakout room, everyone in those rooms will be warned and then forced back into the primary meeting room automatically. The settings for the smaller breakout rooms can also take on the same safety settings as the main room. There will also be a new ‘video lock’ option so that everyone’s cameras can be disabled in one click when necessary. As we previously covered, Meet hosts will also be gaining tools for muting everyone at once.

When a host closes breakout rooms, everyone is forced back into the main room!

Additional admin controls for deciding who can or can’t join a school’s video calls based on if they’re from that school or outside of it will also be added this month. Admins with Education Standard and Education Plus licenses can end any meeting directly from an investigation tool in the dashboard as well, and can even disable the ability for anyone to rejoin said meeting without a host present.

All of these new security features will be welcome additions to the already incredible toolkit that educators now have with Google Meet. The software has become extremely powerful and useful for students and teachers alike, and Google continues to push the idea of the ‘Anywhere Classroom’. 

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