Why You Should Ditch Zoom's In-Meeting Chat and Switch to Google Chat

To put it nicely, Zoom's in-meeting chat is limited. Google Chat was recently approved for student use in our district, and I switched immediately. Here are a few reasons why you should switch to!

• You can get messages while you're in a breakout room
• Audible notifications. I miss messages in Zoom all the time because no sound is played when a message arrives.
• Phone app for easy communication while you're away from your work computer
• Messaging while you're not in a Zoom meeting
• Message history that extends beyond the meeting time. A single conversation history with each person/group instead of a separate text file for each meeting.
• Much easier to manage multiple conversations as each appears in its own thread instead of mixed in with all other conversations chronologically.
• Can communicate with a student if they are having technical difficulties (e.g. they get booted out of a meeting, they can't get in, etc…) This makes tech support much easier.
• Paste screenshots (I recommend Greenshot to grab screenshots that are automatically copied to the clipboard. Northbridge teachers already have this installed on school computers.)
• Emojis!