Post #24: Google Updates: Drive, Forms & Gmail






Another week of successful MCAS! Thank you to all teachers for your flexibility in sharing equipment. Much appreciated!





FYI - Google will be making many updates over the coming weeks. I do not have exact dates when we will see changes in our district Google Drive, Google Forms, and Gmail. If you have a personal Gmail account, you may already have access to some of the items below.


Google Drive Updates: Google announced that there's another change coming to Google Drive. That change is a cosmetic change to the Google Drive user interface that you will see when you access Google Drive through your web browser.

The changes to the browser version of Google Drive include:

  • Repositioning of the "settings" icon to be inline with the search bar.
  • A new "new" button in the upper, left corner of the screen. 
  • Changes to the fonts used for headers.
  • A white background replaces the gray background. 

The following GIF provided by Google shows an overview of the updates. 

Google Forms Updates: Do you use Google Forms to create surveys and give online quizzes? If so, Google announced six new features that are going to make Google Forms better than ever. Like most updates to G Suite, these features will be rolled out gradually so if you don't see them today, you will see them soon. You can read more about the six changes here.
  1. Quiz answer suggestions
  2. Autocomplete answers
  3. Automatically grade checkbox and multiple choice grid questions
  4. Give decimal grades
  5. Improve understanding with YouTube video feedback
  6. See the total number of points in a quiz
Gmail Updates: Google has unveiled several updates to Gmail. If you'd like to read the specifics, check out this article. In short, you can expect to see the following:
  • Fresh clean look
  • Sidebar feature that integrates several google apps like calendar, keep, & tasks
  • Ability to snooze emails
  • An expiration date for emails with sensitive information

While these new features have yet to show in our district emails, you can try many of them out now if you have a personal Gmail account. To test out the new features, click the gear icon in the top right corner, and if the update is available on your account, you will see an option to “Try the new Gmail” at the top of the drop-down menu.