Google Classroom - How to provide feedback to Google

[CyBeRkId2002]

Hi all,

 

Wondered if anyone was aware of the best, most visible way to provide feedback to Google over ours (and no doubt many others) current issues with Google Classrooms, and in particular it's meet integration.

 

Wanted to provide info from a teacher's perspective on what would really improve the product from a teaching and learning, and safeguarding, perspective.

 

These include:

 

Allowing anyone who is a teacher on a course having host controls to the associated Google Meet (would help team teaching and safeguarding as we have had issues with not knowing who has host controls). This should at least be a feature for Admins!

 

Allowing teacher to mute all microphones and control who or when they can be unmuted (kind of like the turn off chat feature)

 

Allowing teachers to end the call (not just leave)

 

These are the biggies, but no doubt by the time I got my thoughts down there would be more. Appreciate that Google Meet is an enterprise product that has been crowbarred into educational use but I think if Google are serious about their educational offering (we currently pay over £3000 for the enterprise for education bundle) then they need to improve how it can be improved for the sector. My thoughts are that to achieve these a Google Meet Edu would be required, with links created within Classrooms being functionally different to

 

I know there used to be an online bug tracker where issues could be voted on and those with more stars had higher priority. Was hoping to make a big list of improvements and try and gain traction to get them noticed by Google, but can't seem to find this anymore.

 

Is anyone having the se frustrations as us, and do you know how best to report to the mega-corp that is Google (is there a Google Edu rep on here?)

 

Thanks for any help and if I do manage to log these in a way that can be up-voted I will make sure to link here so others can star if they are having similar issues.

[Theblacksheep]

There is a mute all add on you can install, which might help. Give hosts more control (muting, presenting, invite-only, and more) is in development on their roadmap, so no extra feedback is needed here.

 

Teachers can end it by kicking everyone first, but extra steps. You wouldn't want to accidentally leave and kick everyone, so I can see why it's not actioned with the leave button. I can't seem to find an extension that kicks everyone, then as the organised and last person leaving the meet is ended.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Cheers for the response... Unfortunately I dont think any of the suggestions are going to deal with our core frustrations (which I appreciate may not be shared by all, but would imagine impact some!)

 

Regarding the mute all, I wasn't aware of this and it certainly may help (going to look into deploying Monday) but will not deal with the issue of students being able to unmute later on.

 

Regarding closing the call rather than hanging up - this should absolutely be optional and in some ways harder to access than just hanging up. None the less I think it is a much needed feature. I really like the teams implementation of this where's I believe, end call appears if you click the down arrow next where hangup is. Yes, also aware this can be done by removing students individually but can be very onerous.

 

Our main issue remains who is actually in charge of a call. Ultimately I feel that in a product like classrooms with clearly defined teacher and student roles anyone who joins a call and is a teacher should have the ability to control the call. At a minimum this should be accessible on all calls within a domain for admins

[gh5000]

I know everyone is different and yes if meet was perfect and provided everything everyone wanted that would be great. I don't use teams much but when I have I've been impressed by the featureset over meet but similarly found it to be more complex to use.

 

My opinion is that if you roll out the mute all extension, and kids then unmute and be inappropriate then it is a behaviour issue. The meet logs in the admin console will tell you who unmuted if the teacher is unsure who the culprit is.

[rogerdnixon]

Make sure in Meet settings, students cannot start video calls - option down at the bottom. Then the teacher is always the Meet organisers - being the only one who can start them. It also ensures they get the attendance register (if using Enterprise).

[Theblacksheep]

There are some add-ons that can do registers without the Ent option too.

[CyBeRkId2002]

My opinion is that if you roll out the mute all extension, and kids then unmute and be inappropriate then it is a behaviour issue. The meet logs in the admin console will tell you who unmuted if the teacher is unsure who the culprit is.

 

This sounds like it could be useful and something I have missed!!! Any chance you could point me in the direction of finding it as I can't seem to track it down.

[CyBeRkId2002]

Make sure in Meet settings, students cannot start video calls - option down at the bottom. Then the teacher is always the Meet organisers - being the only one who can start them. It also ensures they get the attendance register (if using Enterprise).

 

Cheers... have found all of them.

 

It sounds like me wanting too much but I like putting solutions in place that require the minimum of staff (and therefor training and a consistent message is easier) to safeguard themselves and students.

[Theblacksheep]

The Meet Quality Tool is good for checking on ongoing meeting and seeing if any are still running. Also shows you when and where people participants muted/unmuted, recording, locations and devices.

 

You're not waiting too much, it's not quite there for EDU and it's annoying as it wont take much.

[CyBeRkId2002]

The Meet Quality Tool is good for checking on ongoing meeting and seeing if any are still running. Also shows you when and where people participants muted/unmuted, recording, locations and devices.

 

You're not waiting too much, it's not quite there for EDU and it's annoying as it wont take much.

 

Thanks for this... wasn't aware of the quality tool and will help immensely to identify students who are not quite using it appropriately.

 

I think your last line sums up my thoughts entirely... the changes I would them to make seem so small yet would impact the effectiveness for teachers so much! Thanks again.