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Google has rolled out a new feature to Google Meet that will allow teachers or educators to divide the participants on a group video call in up to 100 breakout rooms.
The update currently available to customers of G Suite Enterprise for Education, will enable educators to break the class in smaller groups for simultaneous small group discussions or working time.
To create a breakout room, tap on the Activities in the top right, and then breakout rooms. In the Breakout rooms panel, choose the number of different rooms.
Only event creators can create breakout rooms and once the meeting starts, Google will automatically divide people in different rooms randomly. However, it enables moderators to distribute people into different rooms as per their choice.
To manually move people into different rooms, either enter the participant’s name or click the participant’s name, hold down the mouse, drag the name, and then drop it into another breakout room.
To randomly mix up the groups again, click Shuffle. Then tap in the bottom right and click Create.
Google said the feature was a highly requested one and breakout rooms must be created during a video call on a computer. As of now, breakout rooms cannot be live streamed or recorded.
Participants must sign up to their Google accounts from a computer or the app to join the meeting, failing which they will not be assigned to a breakout room.
Participants can later re-join the original meeting following their smaller group discussion. Meanwhile, moderators can also jump between breakout rooms to monitor and participate in discussions.
There will be no admin control of this feature and will be available to Google Meet by default in a few days starting October 8.
Google said the feature will be added to additional Google Workspace editions later this year.
