Create interactive YouTube assignments in Google Classroom more quickly and efficiently, with the help of AI

What’s changing

Last year, we introduced interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom. Since then, educators have been able to turn a passive watching experience into an engaging one, while improving students’ understanding of a subject. 
The current process to create interactive questions requires an educator to manually choose a timestamp, come up with questions, and insert correct answers and distractors. To improve upon this experience and save educators time, we’re introducing AI-suggested questions that educators can easily attach to the video based on its content. 
Before assigning the interactive video activity, Educators will be able to edit the suggested questions ahead of attaching the YouTube video to the assignment. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why you’d use it 

This update helps educators add interactive questions to YouTube videos more quickly and efficiently. 

Additional details 

Even when using the suggestions feature, educators can still edit, remove or create their own interactive questions. Note that suggested questions are only available for certain videos in English. 

Getting started 

Admins:
In order to enable the interactive questions feature, YouTube must be turned ON by administrators as an additional service for educators. This setting can be managed in the Admin console. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning YouTube on or off for users. End users: Educators:If enabled by your admin, you can create or delete interactive questions for YouTube videos and grade & track interactive questions for YouTube videos.Suggested questions are available when you find a spark icon below the video title in the video search results. Visit the Help Center to learn more about interactive questions for YouTube videos in Google Classroom. Students: Students can complete a video activity regardless of whether YouTube is turned ON or OFF as an additional service. Please note that the video activity must have been created by an educator with YouTube turned ON. 

Rollout pace 

This feature is available now. 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
Education Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Help your students learn to read with Read Along in Classroom

What’s changing

In 2019, we launched Read Along as an Android reading app to help young readers have fun while learning to read. Read Along has an in-app reading buddy who guides readers along as they read aloud, offering assistance when they struggle, and rewarding them with stars when they’re successful. 
Today, we are excited to introduce Read Along in Google Classroom, a new feature that helps students build their independent reading skills by enabling teachers to assign differentiated reading activities, based on Lexile® measure, grade level, or phonics skills. With this feature, a digital reading buddy, Diya, gives students real-time assistance and pronunciation support, with the help of AI. Read Along offers engaging and inspiring reading assignments, while providing educators with insights on students’ reading progress over time, including their accuracy, speed, and comprehension.
Educators can also: 
Access 800+ fiction and non-fiction books in the Read Along library within Classroom, including texts from publishers like Heggerty and ReadWorks. Each book is categorized by Lexile® level, grade level, or phonics skills and some have comprehension questions. Personalize the experience for each learner by assigning books with the right difficulty level based on a student’s reading abilities. Check for understanding by assigning books with comprehension questions. Read Along in Classroom will be available globally, so students around the world can practice their reading skills in English. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why you’d use it 

Read Along in Classroom provides fun and engaging reading assignments for students, while also enabling educators to track performance and more easily identify students who need extra support. Some key highlights include the ability to: 
Help boost reading skills with activities for each student based on their reading level or phonics skills. Provide instant help for students, with the help of AI-powered reading buddy, Diya to give students in-the-moment assistance on correct pronunciation and more. Get important insights about your students’ progress including their accuracy, speed, and comprehension. Support English language learners in building their reading skills, with additional support in Spanish 

Additional details 

Read Along is now a Workspace Service for Google Workspace for Education customers. Admins will now find this service listed under Workspace Services in Admin Console. Read Along in Classroom will be available to all Google Workspace for Education users with their school issued account and will be governed by the Workspace for Education Terms of Service, with data collection and use being governed by the Google Workspace for Education Privacy Notice

Getting started 

Admins: Existing Workspace Customers (those who signed up for Workspace for Education before July 7, 2024): Read Along in Classroom will be available to all Google Workspace for Education customers as a service that will be covered under the Workspace for Education Terms of Service. You can enable Read Along in the Admin Console for users in your domain to access this service. Visit the Help Center to learn more about turning Read Along on or off for users. For new Workspace Customers (those who sign up for Workspace for Education on or after July 7, 2024): Read Along will be automatically enabled in the console, and all eligible users will have direct access to it.
Visit the Help Center to learn how to turn Google Read Along on or off for users. End users: Visit the Help Center to learn more about Read Along in Google Classroom. 

Rollout pace 

This feature is available now. 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
Education Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade 

Resources 

Insert images into practice sets in Google Classroom

What’s changing

Since adding practice sets to Google Classroom in 2023, we’ve made numerous improvements such as giving teachers more control over the resources for students in practice sets and adding the option to convert Google Forms into practice sets. 
Today, we’re excited to introduce a new feature that will enable teachers to visually illustrate concepts being assessed in practice sets. Now, teachers can import images, like graphs, charts or photos, into practice sets using files from Google Drive or directly from their computer. 
In addition to image editing capabilities within practice sets, this update will be extended to the Forms conversion workflows so if a teacher imports a Form into a practice set any images you have in the Forms will also import. 

Who’s impacted 

Admins and end users 

Why you’d use it 

Including visuals in practice sets will provide students with more engaging assignments. 

Getting started 

Admins: Practice sets are enabled by default, but admins need to add teachers to the verified teacher group in order for them to receive a shared practice set from other teachers in their Google Workspace.End users:
To access practice sets, go to Google Classroom > Practice sets > Create (or practicesets.classroom.google.com).
Visit the Help Center to learn more about creating, editing, deleting, or sharing a practice set.

Rollout pace 

Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains: Extended rollout (potentially longer than 15 days for feature visibility) starting on June 18, 2024, with expected completion by July 18, 2024 

Availability 

Available for Google Workspace: 
Education Plus and the Teaching & Learning Upgrade

Resources 

Google Workspace Updates Weekly Recap – June 14, 2024

1 New update

Unless otherwise indicated, the features below are available to all Google Workspace customers, and are fully launched or in the process of rolling out. Rollouts should take no more than 15 business days to complete if launching to both Rapid and Scheduled Release at the same time. If not, each stage of rollout should take no more than 15 business days to complete.

Make a space discoverable to a target audience using the Google Chat API 
Earlier this year, we introduced the option to create discoverable spaces using the Google Chat API through the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program. We’re excited to announce this is now generally available for Google Workspace developers. | Rolling out now to Rapid Release domains and Scheduled Release domains | Available to all Google Workspace customers. | Learn more about discoverable spaces.

Previous announcements

The announcements below were published on the Workspace Updates blog earlier this week. Please refer to the original blog posts for complete details.

Stay on top of shared Drive files with automatic digest emails 
If you haven’t been active on Drive for 7 days and have multiple shared files that are unviewed, we’ll send you a reminder email that summarizes the files. | Learn more about automatic digest emails for Drive files. 
Adding audit logs for Gemini for Google Workspace activity 
We’re introducing the ability for admins to see new audit logs in Google Drive for activity triggered by Gemini for Google Workspace. | Learn more about audit logs for Gemini. 
Google Meet add-ons are now available on Android devices 
We’re expanding access to Google Meet add-ons, now to Android devices, so you can find, install, and use third and first-party applications right from within the Meet app. | Learn more about Meet add-ons. 
Updated design for meeting controls in Google Meet 
Google Meet is gradually improving and modernizing the in-call experience with the Material 3 Design System. This week, we are announced the first update, which is specific to the lower bar of in-call controls in Meet. | Learn more about updated designs for meeting controls in Google Meet.
Google Classroom now supports grade category and co-teacher imports from SIS partners
Starting this week, teachers can now import their grade categories and co-teachers from their linked SIS. | Learn more about import grading categories or co-teachers
Google Meet now supports high definition video for meeting recording and devices 
Full HD video content is now available for recorded meetings and sending full HD video is now available on all computers with 1080p cameras. Learn more about new video support in Meet.

Completed rollouts

The features below completed their rollouts to Rapid Release domains, Scheduled Release domains, or both. Please refer to the original blog posts for additional details.

Rapid Release Domains: 
Scheduled Release Domains: 
Rapid and Scheduled Release Domains: 

For a recap of announcements in the past six months, check out What’s new in Google Workspace (recent releases).   

Stay up to date on important changes in your Google Sheets

This announcement was part of Google Cloud Next ‘24. Visit the Workspace Blog to learn more about the next wave of innovations in Workspace, including enhancements to Gemini for Google Workspace.

What’s changing

In order to provide greater visibility into spreadsheet changes most relevant to your workflow and help enable more efficient team communication, we’re introducing conditional notifications. 
These allow you to create rules in spreadsheets that send email notifications when certain criteria are met. When a specific change is made, such as a column value change or a specific range of cell changes, you will receive an email notification with alerts of what occurred in the spreadsheet and who made the update. You also have the option to configure the notifications for others by inputting their email addresses during the notification setup. 

Who’s impacted 

End users 

Why it matters 

Conditional notifications keep you and your stakeholders up to date on recent changes within a spreadsheet. You can set rules to notify you (or others) when: 
Tasks have changed status or owner in a project tracker Certain items reach a certain number of stock in an inventory tracker A number drops below a certain value in a forecast analysis 

Getting started 

Admins: There is no admin control for this feature. End users: If you own or have edit-access to a Sheet, you can set notifications when: A range of cells changes value A range of cells matches a particular condition To set conditional notifications, open your spreadsheet, go to Tools > Conditional notifications > Add rule. You can also right-click directly on a spreadsheet and select Conditional notifications. Note: The rules are assigned default names automatically. However, you can update the name of the rule by utilizing the text editor. Visit the Help Center to learn how to use conditional notifications.

Rollout pace 

Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on June 4, 2024 Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on June 18, 2024 

Availability

Available for Google Workspace: 
Business Standard, Plus Enterprise Starter, Standard, Plus Education Plus Enterprise Essentials 

Resources