Year End Round-Up With UAlberta Google
The upheaval of 2020 compelled us to embrace productivity tools like never before. Our workspaces have been truly reimagined as we dove head first into becoming masters of raising our hands in meetings, presenting our screens, hitting the all important mute and video buttons, sharing and adding comments in documents, chatting in virtual rooms and illustrating ideas on digital whiteboards.
The U of A’s Google implementation has helped to improve our digital dexterity by introducing ongoing enhancements and new tools throughout the year to better collaborate and connect. With over 200,000 UAlberta CCID’s using Google for Education, 39.2 million emails sent and received each month, and 3,500 TB of data being stored in Google Drive (including 7,100 Jams since May!), UAlberta’s Google implementation is one of the largest, and most active in Canada.
If you’re wondering just how much we embraced video conferencing, look no further: UAlberta Google users hosted 81,000 monthly video conferencing sessions on Meet — compared to an average of 7,700 monthly sessions last year!
With 2020 coming to an end, we’ve rounded up some highlights showcasing what Google brought to UAlberta Google users throughout the past year.
What’s New? Take a Look Back at 2020
This year introduced new tools for remote collaborative whiteboarding (Jamboard) and connecting and engaging with UAlberta users (Currents). Google Chat became the default messaging experience, and an all new integrated workspace was launched to help us stay focused, be productive, and collaborate more effectively without leaving Gmail! Take a look back at these and other changes:
- Get to Know Google Meet
- Google integration in eClass with Assignments and Drive embedding
- Unleash Your Team’s Creativity with Jamboard
- Introducing a New Integrated Workspace in Gmail
- Communicate your way with Google Chat
- New Pincode Collaboration in Google Drive
- New Folder Sharing Permissions in Google Drive
- Engage and Share Content with Google Currents
Check the updates calendar for more!
New ways to be more effective were also introduced this year, including the following features:
- Create pointers to any file or folder in Google Drive with shortcuts
- Use Smart Compose in Google Docs to help save time by cutting back on repetitive writing, reduce the chance of spelling and grammatical errors, and suggest relevant contextual phrases
- Sort and filter cells by text or fill color in Google Sheets
- Grant access to Drive files and complete other tasks directly from a Gmail message
- Start a brainstorming session with Jamboard in Meet session
- Forward Google Chat messages to email
- Coming this December, use mixed page orientations in Google Docs
Check out our Google Tips & Tricks guide for even more!
And that’s a wrap! Be sure to keep an eye on IST’s Google News to see what’s in store for next year, and learn the latest, tips, tricks and updates. And if you know someone that’s doing something cool with Google on campus, send their info to istcomms@ualberta.ca and they might be featured in an upcoming article!