It's been about a year after I leave Zoom and choose Google Meet (or GMeet in short) for my online classes. Yes, Zoom is good, but there are some concerned that I need to move to GMeet to address them. I witness how Gmeet evolved from a very simple platform, to what appears today to be an awesome version.
1. We can now see the meeting host
The ease of making recordings is one of the features that become my main point in moving out to GMeet. Since I am currently using a chromebook, making recording in Zoom gives me a bunch of problems. A chromebook will not allow Zoom recording files to be stored in local disk. Instead, I need to purchase the premium version of Zoom to save the recordings in the Zoom cloud. And the cheapest paid version only allows 2 GB of cloud storage, which is approximately 4 times of my lessons. That is so limited.
Since then, Gmeet has always be my go-to. Recording in GMeet will automatically be stored in Google Drive. And with a school gmail account. The storage is almost unlimited.
The problem arise when my students entered the GMeet before me. In GMeet, the first person who entered the meeting will become host. When that happens, I lost the host control, I cannot record the meeting.
Another problem with this host system is that, I need to inform the student who become host to admit their classmates who are using non-account Google account.
2. Search for People
The list of participant in Google Meet is arranged in alphabetical order. Yes, it was easy to find a specific name by looking at the orders, but GMeet has now make it much easier, by adding the search tool. For instance, I need to check a specific students name, I can just type her/his name on the search box, then the names will appear. this especially efficient if the class consists of large number of participant
3. Dark Simple look
i really like the new look of Gmeet. It looks simple and modern because of its dark color. Combination of black and red just makes it lovely. The buttons now are more user friendly. Leave the meeting button is now at the most right, so students (or me myself) will no longer accidentally click them.
4. Animated virtual background
Although I prefer my videos plain without virtual backgrounds, my students are absolutely crazy about the choice of virtual backgrounds in Google Meet. Especially after Google Meet release the animated versions of them. One day when I was teaching, they purposely change all their background with the same purple animated one. Then I suddenly felt like I was in the middle of the purple sea. lol.
Those are several updates in GMeet that make me happy. I am also glad that teachers are now more open minded and bravely find alternative that suits them other than Zoom.
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