New products to discover in digital platforms

In collaboration with Alexandra Coutlée, educational advisor at the Center de services scolaire de Laval

It's back to school and you have a thousand and one things in mind. It can be difficult to stay informed of what's new in the digital platforms you use. We've taken the tour for you and we're showing you the changes or improvements that should grab your attention.

* Please note, the new features announced are not all deployed at the same time to all users. Occasionally there may be a delay.

Microsoft Teams

Some novelties were announced at Microsoft Teams over the summer:

• Lock a meeting to prevent anyone from joining the meeting after it has started;
• Highlight the video of a person in a meeting;
• Lower all hands at the same time to make room for new interventions;
• Use a virtual laser pointer on the slides and draw on them directly to make the presentation more interactive;
• Use the immersive reader or the reading progress tool;
• Assign work to a specific group of students;
• Consult activity statistics for each student;
• Integrate other tools like Pear Deck, Miro, Mural, LucidSpark and Wakelet;
• Use the new Reflect tool to quickly probe the general feeling of the group (a kind of Mentimeter).

In addition :

• 5 new features in Microsoft Teams for successful meetings
• 10 new Microsoft Teams features for educators (2021)
• What's new from Microsoft to improve the use of videoconferencing
• Teams unveils new features for hybrid work

Other new features at Microsoft

Microsoft has acquired Clipchamp, an online video creation and editing platform.

Google Classroom

Several novelties caught our attention at Google as well. We only list those that are available with the free version.

• Prepare an assignment and distribute it to several groups in a single operation.
• See when a student is active in the app and its interactions.
• Work offline on Android devices (handy for students who want to work on the bus!). 
• Automatically put participants in a meeting in the waiting room until the teacher arrives.
• Give moderation rights to someone who is not in our Classroom.
• Automatically remove the raised hand after the person has asked their question.
• Close all the cameras in one operation (it was already possible to close all the microphones).
• It is no longer possible to record meetings in the free version.
• Add checkbox lists in a Google Document via the Bullets / Checklist formatting button (once the checkbox is checked, the text is automatically crossed out. Satisfactory!)

In addition : 

• Listen to episode 36 of the podcast The service geek 
• These Are The New Google For Education Features Teachers Need To Know About

Flipgrid

Flipgrid video maker presents some new features:

• a simplified design;
• the creation of questions on mobile and no longer only on computer; 
• a music bank to create sound atmospheres;
• adding background and filters;
• integration into Minecraft.

In addition : Listen to episode 37 of the podcast The service geek 

Edpuzzle

Among the new features recently announced by the Edpuzzle team, we retain that: 

• students can now respond orally to a question;
• they can create their own video sequence with questions;
• the teacher can record his screen;
• better integration with various tools, including some from Microsoft and Google, has been developed.

Wakelet

On the side of Wakelet, we note the possibility:

• to create and manage classes;
• embed a table in Word;
• use Microsoft's immersive reader in the Wakelet mobile app.

In addition: the Wakelet prepared by Alexandra Coutlée as part of this article.

Have you noticed any other new features in these tools or other applications that you regularly use with your students? Let us know by writing to info@ecolebranchee.com