Sunday 26 April 2020

A Whiteboard extension for Google Meet

This morning I woke up and the first post on my Twitter feed was by Darren White about a new Google Meet extension called Google Meet Classroom Extension which adds a raise hand feature and whiteboard into Google Meet.  It allows for drawing, inserting typed text and LaTeX math.  Darren showcases the tool nicely in this video (consider subscribing, he's got good Google stuff on there!):




So, of course, I jump on my computer to give it a try and here are my initial thoughts:

Pros:

  • Simple integration of a whiteboard - note you need to be in Present mode then start the whiteboard or only you will see it.
  • Math and chem formulas enter easily with LaTeX.
  • Slick interface as the buttons appear on the bottom bar.

Cons

  • The raise hand feature wasn't working for me - only the person with the raises hand saw their hand was raised.  Apparently there can be up to a 20 second delay - and truth be told I did it quickly.
  • Can't see the chat etc. when activated, take sthe whole window (when i saw this I was hoping it was a little screen within the Meet window, but alas, no.
  • Can't insert an image to annotate (Jamboard much more dynamic).
  • Apparently the creator's server is maxed out so not sure if it might start crashing.

Overall - simple for a quick whiteboard, good for beginner users, personally I would stick with Jamboard, AWW App or Whitebord.fi for anything beyond a basic need to show something quickly.

No comments:

Post a Comment