The Google Meet Whiteboard Extension is a great way to engage participants in your online classes or virtual meetings. It is safe, secure, and Google is continually adding new features.

Google is working through its list of features, and other developers are creating extensions to make Google Meet even better.  One of these extensions is the Google Meet Classroom extension that adds a Whiteboard natively to Google Meet.

Here are instructions on how to install it.

Go to the Chrome Web Store and search for Google Meet Classroom extension or click here to open it directly. Then, click on the ‘Add to Chrome’ button to install the extension. You can also search for the Google Meet Whiteboard extension.

The confirmation box will appear on the screen Click on ‘Add extension’ to confirm and install it on your browser. The extension icon will appear on the Address Bar of the Chrome browser. It looks like a whiteboard with three people and an eraser on the whiteboard tray.

How to Use Whiteboard in Google Meet

Once you have installed the extension to your browser, it will be ready to use in Google Meet. Go to meet.google.com and join or create a meeting as usual. When you enter the meeting, you will see a ‘Whiteboard’ option next to the ‘Captions’ option on the call toolbar. Clicking on it will open the Whiteboard. But the whiteboard is not an interactive one, and just opening it will not make it visible to others.

It is important to note that you will have to present your screen for participants to see the whiteboard. This is not an interactive whiteboard. However, if students install the extension, they will be able to “present back” on their whiteboard.

Click on the ‘Present now’ icon on the call toolbar.

When the “Present Now” option window pops up, select  ‘A chrome tab’ to share your screen.

Now when the dialog box displaying all the active chrome tabs opens, select the tab with Google Meet, i.e., the tab where the meeting is occurring and then click on the ‘Share’ button.

Your Google Meet screen will become visible to other participants in the meeting. Click on the ‘Whiteboard’ icon while you are sharing your session, and your whiteboard will open and be visible to everyone in the meeting. Any edits or writing that you add to the whiteboard will be visible live.

You can doodle, write text, and use math formulas on the whiteboard. If you have questions, please refer to the following Youtube video Google Meet Whiteboard Extension.

Screenshots  from https://allthings.how/

---