New Google Features for 2024 BETT Announcements

Key Takeaways

hi and welcome back to the nerdy teacher with your host Linda I have some exciting news today I'm really excited to uh be sharing with you some new features that Google for Education have just announced today at B so today Google for Education announced over 30 new features that are designed to boost productivity and increase personalizing in the classroom and I'm here to share with you my top three favorites the ones I'm most excited about so let's get into it and number three there are some updates coming for reading mode in the Chrome browser uh that are being piloted right now as we speak you might not have discovered reading mode yet um it's in the side panel of your Chrome browser and it's a handy feature that allows you to adapt the main text on uh a chrome Chrome window to suit the reader so this currently includes font changes spacing um and the backgrounds um which would be useful for students and teachers as well with dyslexia or with other reading difficulties um and this is being expanded soon to include read alloud mode with a natural sounding voice and feature where it highlights the text as it reads aloud so students with reading difficulties are able to still access the text and the information on the Chrome browser or on the gr browser window at number two a fantastic new feature for Google Slides uh this has come out now it's available now globally in Google Education Plus um and this is a recording feature inside that allows you to insert a video of yourself presenting the slides directly into the slides so this is going to be a bit of a game Cher for online teaching and and for differentiated instruction so on your screen you're editing your slides there's a button there that you can click on to record and while you're uh recording you can be presenting the slides so you're looking at the slides on the screen and you're talking through the slides really fantastic new feature there for Google Slides I'm quite excited about trying that one out finally at number one this is the feature that I am most excited about and I actually did a little whoop when I heard the news which is a little bit sad but never mind I've been absolutely desperate for this feature for years so coming later on this year student groups in Google class room I'm so excited it's going to save me so much time I can't tell you how excited I am about this feature it's going to make differentiating tasks so much easier and quicker in Google Classroom so this update will allow us to create groups in Google Classroom groups of students and easily assign different content to different students uh based on their specific needs it's going to be amazing I'm really excited about it so keep your eyes peeled if you're an ed plus user or you've got the teaching and Learning Upgrade this uh fantastic feature is scheduled to drop globally later this year and that's it for now please drop a comment below or tag me on social media to let me know what you think about these updates and about other things that you've heard from bet this year maybe you've heard some bits and pieces that I haven't heard yet I'll be interested to find out till next time keep your heart and education and your head and head Tech goodbye