Exploring Google Meet “Breakout Room Extension” for Group Activity

In this time of the pandemic, the delivery of lessons to students has changed big time. From face-to-face to virtual class, all of us adjusted to adapt to this new standard set-up.

As we go through adjusting, this particular issue was one of the teachers’ primary concerns. How will the students get to interact with their classmates this time? How will they share their ideas regarding the topic? But the good thing is we have this Breakout room to explore that will allow us to engage students in group participation.

First, let us explore Google Meet Breakout Room. This room can break the class into smaller sections while you have your lecture or conference, basically like a small group in digital form.

Now, let’s explore this breakout room. It is free, and you can get it by simply typing in google search the “chrome extension” or by clicking on this link: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/category/extensions. Then, in the search bar, type Google Meet Breakout and click enter.

Find the icon that has a purple b, and click add to chrome. Now, you already have the breakout room extension.

We will now look into the features of this google breakout room and see how this works.

This extension help teacher to create multiple breakout rooms. As you transfer to rooms, your camera and microphone will automatically turn off. You have control for each of the room as what you can see on the picture above. But you can’t automatically transfer your student to their assigned breakout room.

Click Rooms to start creating your breakout rooms. To add a room, click the plus sign on the left corner of your screen, or if you want to remove a room, click the minus sign inside the red rectangle icon on the right side of your screen. You can also rename the room to recognize or remember the groups easily. And if you think your room is enough for your class, click the save button beside the plus sign or add icon. Once you click save, the link is automatically created. You will copy the link and give it to them using your main room.

For example, in the chatbox: For group number 1, here are the members. (show them the list). To join from in the room, please click this link https://meet.google.com/swe-rxue-tfy (copy the link for group 1). It is advisable to check first if they have joined already in their assigned room before asking them to leave in the main session room.

To assign the number of breakout rooms to be generated, you need to click the “start class” button and click Breakouts. It will show you different numbers depending on how many rooms were created. Choose the number of breakout rooms you want to activate.

In assigning group members, this extension has this feature that sets students to what breakout room they will proceed to, or you can give your list of members per group manually. But take note, in assigning members automatically to their respective groups, those students who joined the main room will be given a room.

You can also remove and mute participants. It can mute all the participants in the main room, in breakout rooms, or all the participants in all rooms, including the main session.

Once all the participants are already in their respective groups, you can monitor them by clicking “Open Breakouts.” It will automatically open all the breakout rooms that you assigned to your students.