Google LLC is enhancing its Google for Education service with more than 30 new features, including several artificial intelligence and accessibility tools.

The search giant detailed the update today at Bett 2024, a major education technology event taking place in London. During the conference, Google also introduced 15 new Chromebooks. Six of the laptops are so-called Advanced Use models, which offer better specifications than a standard Chromebook and are geared toward hardware-intensive tasks such as coding.

Google for Education is a product bundle that includes a version of the Google Workpace productivity suite for schools. The bundle also ships with several other offerings, notably Google Classroom. Introduced in 2014, the latter service provides an interface through which teachers can create, distribute and grade assignments.

Many of the feature additions Google debuted today will become available through Classroom. One new capability enables teachers to assign YouTube videos to students and create questions about those videos with the help of AI. Another upcoming feature will make it possible to turn data collected through Google Forms into so-called practice sets, AI-generated assignments that the search giant originally introduced in 2022.

The machine learning enhancements are joined by two content management tools. According to Google, a new Resources tab in the Classroom interface will enable teachers to manage AI-generated practice sets and other learning materials. Additionally, the company has added an embedded electronic signature tool to ease the task of processing contracts. 

“Built directly into Google Workspace, eSignature makes it easy for educators to draft contracts, request signatures in Docs and PDFs in Drive, and manage contract templates all in one place,” Shantanu Sinha, vice president and general manager of Google for Education, detailed in a blog post. 

The third set of features Google debuted at Bett 2024 focuses on accessibility. The enhancements are rolling out for Google Meet, ChromeOS and Chrome.

Meet is gaining the ability to generate closed captions in 30 additional languages. In conjunction, Google is rolling out a setting that makes it possible to pin multiple video tiles to the service’s interface during presentations. Sinha explained that the feature “can be especially helpful when presenting with a sign language interpreter.”

In ChromeOS, the built-in screen reader can now extract text from PDFs using optical character recognition and read the text aloud. Chrome’s Reading Mode feature is gaining a similar text-to-voice capability. Launched last May, Reading Mode is a pop-up sidebar in the browser’s interface that displays only the most important text from the webpage the user has opened.

Teachers whose requirements are not fully met by Google for Education’s built-in feature set may extend it using third-party software. Later this year, Google plans to launch a marketplace called App Hub that will provide access to third-party add-ons as well as integrations with external applications. The add-ons in App Hub will focus on use cases as varied as creating virtual whiteboards and teaching programming concepts.

Rounding out today’s feature additions is a pair of new cybersecurity controls. According to Google, the first new control allows educational institutions to require that an administrator request approval from another administrator before changing sensitive configuration settings. The second new feature will make it easier for educators to request and approve integrations with third-party applications. 

Image: Google