School News: Teacher Improves a Google Video Conference Platform
Fall 2020
Many schools experienced a lot of angst about pivoting to distance learning as campuses closed during the pandemic. Would the technology allow for a smooth transition? Would parents, teachers, and students be able to navigate it easily? Group video calls in particular can be especially tricky—with microphones accidentally muting, Wi-Fi signals disrupting, and people talking over each other.
Like many schools, St. George’s Episcopal School (LA) had been using Google Meet, the tech company’s premium video conferencing software, to try to replicate the in-person classroom experience. But it was challenging. Teachers could not see their young students raising their hands, and, for big classes in which multiple people speak at once, Google Meet didn’t work well because the screen jumps from user to user depending on who is talking.
Ryan Meyers, the school’s director of technology, wanted to help make virtual meetings a more user-friendly experience. When another St. George’s teacher told Meyers about Chris Gamble, a software developer in Washington state who designed a script to try to solve the Google Meet problem, Meyers used it to create an extension for Google Chrome. The free extension allowed users to change the video view to a grid format so users can see everyone in a meeting at once, and the speaker is highlighted.
“At some point, that link got blasted out, and I had an inbox full of support requests and thank-yous,” Meyers told the local CBS news channel.
Nearly 10 million unique users across the world installed the extension.
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