Google LLC today introduced a set of new education features for Chrome and Workspace that will help students learn more efficiently.

The company also debuted enhancements for its ChromeOS operating system. The operating system, which offers a similar interface as Google’s popular browser, is used in the education sector to power student laptops. 

As part of today’s update, the Chrome browser is receiving a feature known as reading mode. It reduces distracting web page elements to help students with dyslexia focus on a page’s primary content. The reading mode can be activated through Chrome’s side panel, the dropdown menu that contains the browser’s Bookmarks and Reading List features.

“Reading mode reduces distracting elements on the screen, like images and videos, to help you focus on a page’s primary content,” Andy Russell, families and education product lead at Google’s ChromeOS unit, detailed in a blog post. “You can also customize settings like the typeface, font size and spacing, and text and background color.”

The second update Google announced today is rolling out to Workspace for Education, the education edition of its popular productivity suite. The search giant is adding new features to the suite’s Google Classroom teacher tool, as well as Docs, Slides and Meet.

The Classroom tool in Workspace for Education is used by teachers to perform tasks such as giving assignments and reviewing homework. Today, Google disclosed that the tool will soon receive a new artificial intelligence feature called practice sets. The feature, which was first previewed last year, is set to become available worldwide in the coming weeks.

Practice sets can automatically turn an educator’s teaching materials into assignments for students. Moreover, the feature generates suggestions on what topics an educator should prioritize when crafting assignments. Students, in turn, can access question hints as well as feedback on their answers.

“As teachers add questions to their practice set, they’ll see suggestions for skills to focus on — like solving equations with decimals or writing thesis statements,” explained Google for Education Director Jennifer Holland. “Through auto-generated insights, practice sets also help educators quickly identify gaps in understanding at both the class and student level, so they can tailor their approach.”

A second new capability rolling out to Classroom will enable teachers to share educational videos with students and add embedded questions. Students can answer the questions as the video plays. An analytics tool will enable teachers to review students’ answers.

Docs, meanwhile, is receiving new time-saving features as part of the update. Teachers will gain the ability to create templates for frequently used content such as lesson plans. Such templates can be quickly embedded in a document via a shortcut to reduce repetitive work.

The capability is rolling out alongside three new chips, interactive elements intended to make documents more useful. Two time tracking chips that function as a timer and a stopwatch, respectively, will ease tasks such as measuring the amount of time a student takes to complete an assignment. And a new upvote widget will enable users to provide feedback about documents.

Another collection of new features is for Google’s Meet videoconferencing service and Slides presentation tool. Among the additions is an AI capability called Hand Raise Gesture Detection. It detects when students raise their hands in front of their webcams and activates Meet’s Hand Raise feature, which informs other presentation participants that a user is looking to join the discussion.

The feature is rolling out alongside several other enhancements. While holding a Meet presentation, users can now access speaker notes as well as allow a co-presenter to manage slides. Moreover, a new captioning feature will automatically add captions in English, French, German, Portuguese and Spanish to Meet recordings, with support for more languages set to arrive down the road.

The final set of updates that Google debuted today is rolling out for its ChromeOS operating system. According to the company, administrators will receive additional controls for regulating data processed on ChromeOS devices. Google also debuted 13 new partner-developed Chromebooks that are specifically geared towards the education sector. 

Image: Google