The technology behind Google+ Hangouts — Online Video News. How are Educators Using Google Plus Hangouts? Digital Tools Phillip Torrone As more people join Google’s new social network, Google+, they’re figuring out how to take advantage of some of the innovative uses for the site. One obvious use for educators is to boost their personal and professional network, particularly as the service offers more granular controls for privacy and sharing. Within these Circles, as each designated group is called, educators and students can create discussion groups without having to worry about the awkward or troubling “friend” or “follower” relationships that come with Facebook and Twitter.
But beyond that, Google Hangouts opens up another realm of possibilities for educators. Google Hangouts allows up to 10 people to video chat with one another. Google’s Hangout technology recognizes who is speaking during a session and that person’s image takes the “big screen” while other participants appear in small tiles below. Take “Ask an Engineer,” for example. Related Explore: Google, Google Plus. Google Hangouts: Now with Google Docs Integration, Now Even Better for Edu. When Google launched its new social network, Google Plus earlier this summer, there was a flurry of stories about the site's potential for education.
I confess, I penned a few: But as the summer waned on and the initial buzz over the site died down, it became less clear whether Google Plus would have the momentum going into the school year to appeal to returning teachers and students. Some of the pieces to make the site successful in an academic setting were (and still are) missing: namely integration with Google Apps for Education. The current 18-and-over age policy doesn't help much either. Hangouts: Video Communication and Collaboration But Google announced a number of updates to Google Plus this morning that do point to the great potential the site still could have for teaching and learning. Most notably, Google has made its Hangouts feature even more useful for communication and collaboration. New Features for Hangouts: Broadcasting, Google Docs, Screensharing. The Google+ project: Explore Hangouts
Google+ Hangout May Pull Facebookers. NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Google's (GOOG_) Facebook imitation, Google+, throws a lot of social networking features at the wall, and one just might stick: "Hangout," its video conferencing service. Hangout is one of several offerings Google hopes will lure people to its new social homepage called Google+. The site is designed to give users a place to organize their friends and interests in sort of a visual contact list. The company introduced the service Tuesday and is making it available as a field trial to select people. The move is just the latest attempt by Google to find some entry into the social trend where Facebook has enjoyed a commanding presence. A year in the making, Google+ has some of the obvious functions you'd expect.
But Hangout is different. Anyone who has seen their kids gather excitedly around the computer on Oovoo or Tokbox knows how compelling video chatting can be. "Ultimately Hangout may be the feature that gets the most attention and draws users. How Google’s Hangouts API could change social video — Online Video News. FIR Plus: A test drive of Google+Hangout. FIR co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz were joined by friends of FIR Kami Watson Huyse (of Zoetica), Lionel Menchaca (chief blogger for Dell) and Bryan Person (of LiveWorld) for a test drive of Google+ Hangout, the social network’s video conferencing service. The experience was far from perfect and this video has been edited heavily so you don’t have to sit through the gaps and gaffes. Thanks to Bryan Person for capturing the screencast.
Share your comments or questions about this video in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. To receive all For Immediate Release podcasts including the weekly Hobson & Holtz Report, subscribe to the full RSS feed. This FIR Plus video is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Related. Conceptboard Debuts Better Whiteboarding For Google+ Hangouts. It’s only been a few days since the launch of the official Google+ Hangouts API (application programming interface), but we’re already starting to see some interesting implementations make their debut. Case in point: online whiteboarding service Conceptboard has introduced a Hangouts extension that puts Google’s own newly integrated Sketchpad to shame.
On Wednesday, Google rolled out 9 new Google+ features, including several “extras” for Google+ Hangouts, the social network’s multi-person video chat component. Now in beta, these features allow Hangouts users to work together on Google Docs, share screens or collaborate together in Sketchpad, a simple shared sketching application. The Google Sketchpad in Hangouts lets users draw, add shapes, text, lines, images and more into a basic blank document which can be saved to Google Docs. Conceptboard’s Hangouts extension, however, offers a much richer implementation of shared whiteboarding.
4 Reasons Skype Should Fear Google+ Hangouts. How Google’s Hangouts API could change social video — Online Video News. 5 Free Tools for Recording Google+ Hangouts. About Hangouts : Hangouts - Google+ Help. More About Google+ Hangouts. Google's Justin Uberti has more information about Hangouts, the video conferencing app that will be available in Google+. To support Hangouts, we built an all-new standards-based cloud video conferencing platform. This platform combines high quality, low latency, and strong security with the ease of use of a web application. Through the efficiency of this new platform, we're able to deliver a leading video conferencing experience at Google scale.A few noteworthy technical points:* Fully browser-based/cloud-based* Client-server: leverages the power of Google's infrastructure* Designed for low latency (< 100 ms) and high performance (multicore + hardware acceleration)* Standards-based: XMPP, Jingle, RTP, ICE, STUN, SRTP* Fully encrypted (HTTPS + SRTP) Hangouts require the same plugin that's currently used for voice and video chat, it's limited to 10 participants and doesn't work on mobile devices yet.
Google Plus: Is This the Social Tool Schools Have Been Waiting For? There seem to be three forces at play when it comes to education and social media. The first is a lack of force, quite frankly - the inertia that makes many educators unwilling and uninterested in integrating the technology into their classrooms. The second is the force of fear - the pressures on the part of administrators, district officials, and politicians to curtail and ban teacher and students' interactions online.
(See Rhode Island's recently passed legislation that outlaws all social media on school grounds as a case in point.) And finally, the third force is that of more and more educators who are embracing social media and advocating its use on- and off-campus - for student learning and for teacher professional development alike. I spent this past week with many of those teachers at the International Society for Technology in Education conference in Philadelphia, and when Google unveiled Google+ on Tuesday, most of us were otherwise preoccupied.
Plus Potentials for Schools. Google Hangouts Video Chat Will Be Opened for Interoperability. One of the key components of Google+ is Hangouts, the video chat app built into the social network. It's based on some existing technology, from Gmail integration of Google Talk, but it is a complete, stand-alone product. Right now, it looks like an appealing product, but it will need to scale, along with Google+, if it wants to become a real player in the video chat market. One way Google will try to do this is by opening up the technology and the communication channels to third-parties, to make it interoperable with other products. In essence, once Google manages to do this, other video chat app will be able to integrate Hangouts and web apps in general will be able to add video chat features. Google Real-time Communications Tech Lead Justin Uberti took to his blog to answer some of the more technical questions users have had about Hangouts.
One question asked whether the technology behind Hangouts will be opened up. Until then, opening up the current tech will have to do. Is Google's Hangouts Its Killer App?