Starting a Google Meet Session from Classroom

NOTE – It is critical that the instructor is the last person to leave a Google Meet session.

Procedure

1. Log into Google Classroom and open a class that you are preparing to teach. In the class, click on the gear in the top right of the window.

2. After you have “Generated Meet Link” - Turn off Visibility to Students (temporarily) – In the Meet session of the Class Settings page, ensure that the “Visible to Students” link is turned off. This will help curtail distribution of the actual class link to unauthorized persons.

3. Regenerate the Meet Session - It has become necessary to regenerate the link of the Meet session associated with the class before every class session. To do this, click on the pulldown next to the meet session and select Reset from the menu.

4. After the reset, click on the Save button at the top right of the screen to save your changes.

5. When it is time for class to start, the instructor (host) will click on the link to join the Meet session.

6. When the meet starts, click on the Join now button to enter the meet.

7. The following page will pop up. Click on the X in the upper right corner to dismiss.

8. While you are the only one in the meeting, click on the Show everyone link in the top right corner.

9. Click on the Host Controls link.

10. In the Host Controls window click on the “View all host settings” link.

11. In the Settings window, ensure that the three sliders for “Quick Access”, “Share their screen”, and “Send chat messages” are all disabled (grayed out) as shown below and then click on the X in the upper right corner to close.

WARNING - If these three Settings are not disabled, you might experience students taking over your screen or joining your class uninvited. In other words, you will experience the same problems with uninvited guests before these improvements were made to Google Meet.

12. Do not close the meeting tab. After these settings have been changed, and you are ready to begin the class. Select the Classroom tab to go back to your Google Classroom settings.

13. Again click on the gear in the top right of the window and enable the Meet settings to “Visible to students”.

14. Turn on Visibility to Students – In the Meet session of the Class Settings page, re-enable visibility to students by clicking on the slider to enable student visibility. The slider should show blue, as shown below:

15. After the visibility change, click on the Save button at the top right of the screen to save your changes.

16. Students can now click on the Refresh link in their browser to reload the page. When the students refresh their Classroom page, the Google Meet link will now be visible.

17. When the student joins the Google Meet, the options to chat or present will be unavailable. Students from outside of the meet requesting to join can be admitted or denied by the host (instructor). Until they are admitted, they will see a “waiting room” screen.

18. Host controls can be readily accessed by the host (instructor) by clicking on the blue shield in the lower left corner of the meeting interface.

Ending a Meet Session

NOTE – It is critical that the instructor is the last person to leave a Google Meet session.

Once the teaching session is over, all students should be instructed to exit the Google Meet session. Any student who does not log out from the session must be forcibly removed from the Google Meet. This method can also be used to dismiss disruptive students.

1. Click on the Attendees button in the upper right corner of the Meet session.

2. With all remaining attendees displayed, click on the pulldown arrow, and then click on the symbol below the student’s name in Google Meet.

3. In the removal verification window, click on the link for Remove.

NOTE – The removal of all students from the Google Meet session is critical. Any student that has not been removed from the Google Meet session after the host leaves the meeting can take control of that Google Meet session.

4. Once all students have been removed from the Google Meet session, exit the Google Meet session and reopen Google Classroom.

IMPORTANT - Perform steps 1 through 4 of this procedure again to turn off student visibility and regenerate the meet session.

Repeatedly regenerating sessions and limiting student visibility to Google Meet session information until necessary will greatly reduce the chances of rogue agents taking over sessions.