Why use Google Meet?

Google Meet has closed captions (English only) -- Screenshot by Terry Freedman

Google Meet is a video conferencing application. It comes bundled with Google Classroom, but you can also use it as a stand-alone programme at https://meet.google.com/.

Now, I have to be straight with you here. Google Meet is pretty basic, or “bog standard” as we Brits might say. As far as I can ascertain you can’t record sessions (unless you have the Enterprise version of G-Suite), there’s no whiteboard (though you can share your screen or a presentation), and there are certainly no advanced features like break-out rooms.

However, you can have up to 100 participants, which I should have thought is unmanageable unless you’re going to lecture your class, in which case this might suit higher ed lecturers. You can also have meetings of up to 24 hours in length. I think why these two features are useful for standard classes is that if your lesson goes over by 5 minutes it’s not going to suddenly end, you don’t have to end your 45 minute session and then start a new one, and for all practical purposes it doesn’t matter how many students are on your class register.

There is also a chat area, and automated closed captioning (in English only at the moment).

There is also the overriding advantage of simplicity. Both Google Classroom and Zoom are so richly featured that it can be easy to not realise that some features are present, and to forget where they are once you do. Google Meet is so paired-down that I should think almost anyone could use it without too much hassle. The only technical hurdle I (and at least one other person) have found is that for some reason it mutes my microphone when I access a Meet meeting with Google Chrome — I have to use Firefox instead. Very strange.

Mind you, this paired-down characteristic is set to end. I heard from a tutor recently that the Google Meet team are experimenting with break-out rooms. Also, an article by Stephen Downes refers to forthcoming new features: Meet features help engage students and moderate classes. One of these, closed captioning in languages other than English, is to be welcomed. I’m not convinced by many of the others though.

The current “arms race” between all these different platforms is good from one point of view. If, like me, you have been told to use a particular application because it’s departmental policy, you might not lose out on being able to use the kind of features you love in your preferred one.

On the other hand, sometimes all you want is a “quick and dirty” application that does a basic job, and does it reasonably well, rather than a Swiss Army knife of features, most of which you will never use.

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