This will we the last 'Weekly post' before the summer break. Posts will start again in late August or early September focused upon the updates made during the summer months.

Google Docs - Smart chips for files and meetings

Google is currently working on a whole set of enhancements to Google Workspace that will make the collaboration and project management even easier.

Smart chips are already available when you mention a person in a document, displaying additional information such as the person’s location, job title, and contact information.

Google have expanded this functionality to include the ability to insert smart chips for files and events.

  1. Open a document in Google Docs.
  2. Enter "@."
  3. Select from the list of suggestions or enter letters, numbers, or symbols to narrow your suggestions.
  4. Hover over the smart chip to view related information.

Read more here → Google Workspace Updates - Insert smart chips for files and meetings, create checklists in Google Docs [18 May 2021]

Google Docs - create checklists

It is now possible to add checklists to Google Documents.

  1. Click a Google Doc page where you want to add a list.
  2. In the toolbar, choose a list type → Checklist.

Read more here → support.google.com - Add a numbered list, bulleted list, or checklist

Add audio to Kahoot! questions

You can now add audio to questions. Just type a short text in one of the supported languages and it’ll be read aloud to players before they answer the question!

Based on Microsoft Azure’s Text to Speech service that converts text to lifelike speech, this media type supports text in the following 37 languages:

Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, and Vietnamese.

Read more here → New: add audio to Kahoot! questions to power up listening comprehension and language learning [14 June 2021]

Replace your background with a video in Google Meet

In addition to replacing your Google Meet background with a static image, you can now replace your background with a video. At the moment, you can select from three Google made videos: a classroom, a party, and a forest — more options will be available soon.

Just because you can - doesn't mean you should!