Breakout Rooms for Google Meet Help

Enter your Courses

Breakout Rooms application is organized by courses. The first step is to enter your courses in the "Courses" tab.

The red delete button deletes from the bottom up so if you want to delete a course then use drag and drop the move the course to the bottom of the list and then click on the red delete button

Also in the Reports tab is the export/import everything section. This will export all of your data from the extension so that you can import it into a second device with this application installed

Create Breakout Rooms (nicknames, codes, and urls)

You may enter a nickname, code, or a url for the rooms. In addition, you may directly enter the Google Classroom "meet link" which is a lookup for the 10 character system generated nickname for your classroom.

Very important change for Google Classroom: Please copy and paste your "Meet link" from your google classroom page into the link field for your Main room. An example of a Google Classroom meet link is https://meet.google.com/lookup/g45j4fubqb. There is no separate Start Class with Google Classroom section. The sync is automatic if the main room is opened within the extension. If you open first in Google Classroom, then you will sync in the Start section of the Meet tab by clicking on the Open/Sync Main room button there.

Other than that, everything else is backward compatible and you do not have to use nicknames or codes unless you want to.

Nickname: Nicknames are dynamic because their meet urls change for each session. You may enter any value in the link field as your nickname, but please enter the nickname itself and do notinclude any prefix such as g.co/meet/ or meet.google.com/lookup/. Nicknames are color coded light green. Nicknames have the advantage that they expire soon after the session concludes with all participants and the teacher exiting the room. In addition, for new sessions the nickname creates new links.

Google Classroom Nicknames: Google Classroom nicknames are also dynamic because their meet urls change for each session. You may enter the entire "meet link" from the Google Classroom web page which looks up the 10 character system generated google classroom nickname. An example of a Google Classroom meet link is https://meet.google.com/lookup/g45j4fubqb. In this example, the 10 character system generated nickname is g45j4fubqb. You may enter either the full meet link or just the 10 character nickname. They both work the same.

You may also create user defined Google Classroom nicknames. A user defined Google Classroom nickname is the lookup prefix followed by a user defined nickname. An example is https://meet.google.com/lookup/smith_algrebra_1. Alternatively you may more simply enter just the nickname, smith_algebra_1
Code: Codes are static because they always call up the same meet url. A code is a total of 12 characters which consists of the 10 character meet code plus the 2 dashes, in a 3-4-3 format. A code is the 12 characters after the https://meet.google.com/ in the meet url. Static meet urls may be desireable if you want to keep the same link for your sessions
Meet Url: Meet Urls are static because they always call up the same meet url, however, there is a checkbox setting which can make these dynamic by creating new meet urls "on the fly" each time the room is opened. The meet url is the full https://meet.google.com/abc-defg-hij formatted address. You may leave the field blank if you want the extension to automatically create one for you. There is no need to go to the Calendar

To make meet urls dynamic you may click the "Automatically create links each time the room is opened" checkbox in the Settings. This checkbox is only relevant for meet urls. The checkbox is ignored for all other categories such as nicknames, codes, and resource urls.
Resource Url: This may be any web page that the teacher wants to use as a teaching resource, such as a science page, nature website, or a youtube to name a few examples.

Customize your Settings

Tabs/Tiles: This controls whether the breakout rooms each have their own window (tiles) or if they are separate tabs in a window (tabs). The tabs option can control the number of tabs within a window

Colors: Customize the bottom border of your Google Meet

Automatically Allow Outside Participants to enter: This allows participants from outside your organization to automatically enter your room without your approval. If you check this box then if the participant has the link then they can automatically enter the room. This is the equivalent of allowing yourself to be zoom bombed. It is a huge convenience to allow outside participants to enter breakout rooms if they have the link but there is the possibility that an unrecognized person who has this link may enter. The default is Off (not checked). Recommendation is to leave it off to prevent outsiders from entering without your approval.

Automatically Join Meet: Only meets whose URL is listed in the rooms tab may be eligible for an automatic join. For "eligible" meets, this automatic join function can be turned on or off by clicking or leaving the checkbox for the Main room and Breakout rooms. All meets with URLs that are not listed in the Rooms tab will not be automatically joined.

Automatically refresh room links when opened: If the checkbox is selected then new room links will be created on-demand, whenever the Open button is clicked. This saves the teacher the steps of going to the Rooms tab, blanking out the rooms' links, and clicking save in order to get a fresh set of room links. Now the teacher can choose to have the rooms automatically generate brand new links when the Open room button is clicked.

There is a checkbox for the Main room and the Breakout rooms, so each category is separately configureable. For example, if the teacher wants to keep the Main room link static but have the Breakout rooms links dynamically refreshed each time, then the teacher can deselect (not check) the Main room checkbox but check the Breakout rooms checkbox.

Choose your Course and Select the number of Breakout Rooms

Use the dropdowns for Course and Breakouts to choose your course and desired number of breakout rooms. During class you can change the number of breakout rooms. If you increase the number of breakout rooms then when you click on Open Breakout the extension will only open the breakouts that are not yet open. For example, if you first start out the class with 3 breakouts and later decide to add 2 more, then you may change the number of breakouts to 5 and click Open Breakouts. Just those 2 unopened rooms will be opened. To reorganize your tiled windows, after they are opened please click on the Red Re-tile button on the top right hand side of the control panel

Start your Class

There are two basic user types: Google Classroom (GC) teachers and non-GC teachers. For the extension, the only difference between GC users and non-GC users is that GC users must enter their Google Classroom "meet link" into the extension Rooms tab for the Main room link in order for the extension to sync with GC. This is explained below.

Breakout rooms are created and opened the same way for GC users and non-GC users. Only the main room process is different for GC and non-GC users.

1. Google Classroom Teachers In the Rooms tab of this extension, please make sure that you copy the "meet link" from your google classroom page into the Main room link field. An example of a "meet link" is https://meet.google.com/lookup/g45j4fubqb.

Option A: Open the main room using the extension

If the GC teacher opens the main room directly in the extension then the main room is automatically linked.

Main room automatically synced. Nothing needs to be done

Option B: Open the main room by clicking on the meet link in Google Classroom

If the GC teacher first opens their meet via google classroom by clicking on the "meet link" in the Stream or the icon in their Classwork, then the opened meet tab name will not display "Main" (or whatever you named your main room in the Rooms tab). This means that your main room is not synced with the extension. No worries - it is a single click to sync it up. In the Meet tab of the extension in the Start Class section, click on the "Open/Sync Main Room" button. Now you should see the tab name changed to "Main" which indicates that your main room is synced up.

In the extension, sync the extension with the main room by going to the Meet tab in the Start Class section, click on Open/Sync Meet room

Assign Breakouts - Ad Hoc

The instructions for assigning participants in the ad hoc mode (i.e., on the fly) are described in the Rooms tab, Assign Participants - Ad Hoc section. If you follow those instructions you should be able to see all of your participants, assign then to groups, and copy/paste the links to the students in the Main chat. That section also describes how to trouble shoot if your students do not appear in that section

Assign Breakouts - Pre Assigned

The instructions for assigning participants in the pre-assigned mode (i.e., from a MS word list you prepared before class) are described in the Rooms tab, Assign Participants - Pre Assign section. If you follow those instructions you should be able to see all of your participants, assign then to groups, and copy/paste the links to the students in the Main chat. That section also describes how to trouble shoot if your students do not appear in that section

Slider Move in/out of Rooms

To move between rooms, please either click on the right or left arrows next to the slider or click on the blank space in the slider bar (the black portion). If you click on a blank space in the slider bar, the yellow dot will immediately move to that position.

To avoid inconsistencies, please use the audio visual buttons on the control panel rather than directly clicking the buttons in the individual rooms. If the rooms and the control panel become out of sync, it is easy to get back in sync. Just click on the right arrow and then the left arrow to go right and left, then everything should be back in sync. The selected breakout room speaker/audio/video controls are below the slider. For all other rooms, the speaker/audio/video controls of tab speaker, microphone, and video are turned off.

Occasionally if you grab the slider yellow dot and move the slider by directly moving the yellow dot, the rooms can become out of sync. Multiple rooms may have their speaker, microphone, and video on. To get back in sync again, it's simple. Just click on the slider right arrow and then click on the left arrow slider. This will move you right and then left, syncing all the other rooms back to off, off, off for speaker, microphone, and slider.

I recommend moving the slider by either clicking on the right and left arrows or by clicking on the slider "blank" spot which will make the slider immediately move to that spot. I have never experienced an out of sync problem using these two methods.

Broadcast to All Breakout Rooms

Click on the broadcast speaker/microphone/video controls to broadcast into all of the breakout rooms.

Mute and Remove Participants

To mute the participants in a selected room, click on the first button. To remove participants from a room, click on the second button. To remove participants and close the room click on the last button.

Re-Tile

This button will automatically re-tile all of your Google Meet Breakout Rooms windows - your main room and your breakout rooms. This is super convenient because now you can move windows around, resize them, place one on top of the other and then with a single click on the "Re-Tile" button all the windows will snap back into place, in their original order. Also, teachers may first open the main room and then open the breakouts. With the "Re-tile" button all the windows are tiled together so you can at a glance see all of them. In other cases, during class the teacher may decide to add or close breakouts. With a single click on the "Re-tile" button all the rooms are tiled together.

Reports

Click on the "Reports" tab to find a list of basic reports. They are copied to the clip board and are downloaded to your computer if the checkbox is checked.

Export/Import

There are export/import of breakout room within the "Reports" tab. To copy the entire project, all of the courses and all of the breakout rooms, choose the export/import option within the "Courses" tab

How much memory (RAM) do I need to run the extension?

Normal Mode: In the "normal" mode where you open up all the breakouts simultaneously in either tab or tile mode, most teachers report that they need about 16G RAM to open more than a few rooms, such as 10. In the normal mode, please do NOT check the checkbox in the Meet tab, Sart Class section.

In the "low memory mode" in Settings tab, Main Settings section mode even a tiny computer such as a chromebook should be able to run and manage a very large number of breakouts, such as 50. Theoretically it is unlimited because only one breakout room is displayed on your computer at a time. Even though all the rooms are "open", your computer will display them one by one using the slider control For additional help on this option please move mouse on the info triangle in the checkbox text.

What is a Nickname, Code, or URL?

Nickname: A nickname is a user defined shortcut to call up a meet. Nicknames are specific to an organization. An example of a nickname is the teacher's name followed by the class, such as smith_webdev1. You may enter any value in the link field as your nickname, but please enter the nickname itself and do not include any prefix such as g.co/meet/ or meet.google.com/lookup/

Google Classroom users: You may enter the lookup link here in the rooms tab and the extension will strip out the nickname for you. The "Meet link" on your Google Classroom page has a link of the format https://meet.google.com/lookup/abcdefghij where the 10 characters after the lookup are your classroom's nickname. That nickname is a random set of characters and has no meaning, but technically it is a "nickname". As a convenience, you may enter that full "Meet link" and the extension will strip out the nickname, or you can alternatively enter the 10 characters after the lookup.

As an example, my Google Classroom meet link is https://meet.google.com/lookup/g45j4fubqb. So for this Google Classroom my nickname is g45j4fubqb. The nomenclature is very confusing here which is unfortunate. Google Classroom says "Meet link" but this is actually a lookup for the meet since the meet url changes often. And the 10 characters after the lookup is your Google Classroom nickname even though that nickname has no semantic meaning. If you remember that the 10 characters after the lookup is your GC nickname then you will be able to keep things straight

Code: A code is the 10 character meet code, separated by two -, which makes it a total of 12 characters. An example is abc-defg-hij. Please remember, the extension requires the code to include the two - separators in order to differentiate it from a nickname.

Url: A url can be the full meet url, such as https://meet.google.com/abc-defg-hij. Another example of a url is a teaching resource such as a wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomy, or a free coding bootcamp page such as https://www.freecodecamp.org/

Instructions on entering room links

You may enter a nickname , code, or a url for the rooms. In addition, you may directly enter the Google Classroom "meet link" which is a lookup for the 10 character system generated nickname for your classroom.

Google Classroom Teachers: Please copy and paste your "Meet link" from your google classroom page into the link field for your Main room. An example of a Google Classroom meet link is https://meet.google.com/lookup/g45j4fubqb. The prefix of https://meet.google.com/lookup/ is automatically stripped off for you by the extension once you paste it in the link field. You will then only see the nickname portion which in this example is g45j4fubqb.

The sync is automatic if the main room is opened within the extension. If you open first in Google Classroom, then you will sync in the Start section of the Meet tab by clicking on the Open/Sync Main room button there.

Nickname: An example of a nickname is jsmith_algebra1 . Nicknames do not include any prefix such as g.co/meet/ or meet.google.com/lookup/ . Nicknames are user defined and can contain any string of characters with numbers.

Nicknames are color coded light green and are dynamic because they create different meet urls for each session.

Google Classroom Nicknames: An example of a Google Classroom Nickname is the full meet link https://meet.google.com/lookup/g45j4fubqb or just the final 10 characters g45j4fubqb. You may enter either the full meet link or just the 10 character nickname. If you enter the full meet link the extension will strip out the nickname for you. In this example it is g45j4fubqb

Google Classroom nicknames are color coded light green and are dynamic because they create different meet urls for each session.
Code: A code is 12 characters including the dashes in a 3-4-3 format. An example of a code is abc-defg-hij .

Codes cannot be random characters that you create. They must refer to valid meets that are previously created through calender, the transaction https://meet.google.com/new, or through some other google meet function.

Codes are static because they always call up the same meet url. Static meet urls may be desireable if you want to keep the same link for your sessions
Meet Url: The extension will automatically create a brand new meet url for you if you leave the field blank and click save. There is no need to go to Calendar. Alternatively, you may enter a previously defined meet url in the format https://meet.google.com/abc-defg-hij

Meet Urls are static because they always call up the same meet url. In the Settings tab, you may choose to make meet urls dynamic by clicking the "Automatically create links each time the room is opened" checkbox. This will automatically generate a new meet url each time you open the room. If you check this checkbox for the main room, then you will need to email or otherwise notify the participants of the new main room meet url AFTER you open the room because it changes dynamically. This option may be more useful for breakouts room links.
Resource Url: Resource Urls require the prefix https://. An example of a Resource Url is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pluto

This may be any web page that the teacher wants to use as a teaching resource, such as a science page, nature website, or a youtube to name a few examples.

Why is the extension not working properly? Some functionality works but not others. It used to work but now it doesn't?

It may be because the new version did not updated completely on your system. That is not because of anything you did or did not do. Sometimes that happens to me as well for version updates. Here are some suggestions that work for me to get the extension woken up and working properly

Deactivate/Activate the extension: The extensions can be found by this path: browser/window menu/extensions. Next turn the slider off, wait 2 seconds, then turn the slider on. This does not delete your data. It is similar to restarting your computer but for your extension
Refresh the control panel (command/control r)
Refresh the window (command/control r)
Give the extension an "exercise", force it to go through functions. Make it wake up. Create a dummy class, with 3 or so auto created meet urls, open it, slide through the rooms. Do it twice (three times)
Worst case scenario, Uninstall/install extension: First go to the Courses tab, far right hand side black button Export your data. Uninstall, Install, Import your data through the Reports tab.
Restart your computer

Why can't I see any students in the Assign Participants section?

The main reason is that the extension and Google Meet are not in sync. There are several suggestions for getting them in sync. If your opened Google Meet Main room tab name does not display the name of your Main room (typically "Main") then that means your Meet and this extension are not synced together. In rare cases even though the tab name does display the name of the Main room, the extension is still not in sync.

Please remember that you must be the owner of that Google Meet in order for this to work. You as the teacher need to be the owner of the main room and all the breakout rooms. Also you must use the exact same primary google account for creating and using the extension. Your primary account is the FIRST account that you log in to google with. It is the first account in the list here . To change your primary account, please log out of all of your google accounts and then log in FIRST with your primary account then your other google accounts.

Option 1: In the Start Class section, click on the Open/Sync Main Room button. That should sync up the extension with the Main room.

Option 2 is to refresh both the control panel and the main meet window (control or command R).

Option 3 is to close all the meet windows including the control panel and open them all up again. This just takes a few seconds and no students will be removed from the rooms in the process.

After syncing up the extension with the Main room, you will need to close and open the Assign Participants section to refresh the list of students. Hopefully now you will see your student list.

Why can't I see all of my students in the Assign Participants - Ad Hoc section of "Rooms" tab?

It is likely due to the settings in your Main room. Please verify the settings in the Google Meet itself (not this extension's settings) by clicking on the "..." button on the bottom right hand side of the Google Main room Meet. A popup will appear and click on the Change Layout. Next select Tiled.

This extension needs to be able to "see" all the participants on the screen in order to read them and populate them in the Assign Participants section. Google standard functionality can show up to 16 students at a time. If you have more than 16 students then you will need an additional extension. At the time of this help documentation, the grid view extension I recommend is "Google Meet Grid View (fix)" which can be found here.

If the Grid View extension has a cross slash through its grid icon that indicates it is off. Please click on the icon to toggle it on which will remove the cross slash. Also please do not check the box "Only show participants with video" because you will not get the full list of students since some students may not have their video on. If you will never have more than 16 students then you do not need this Grid View extension because you can use the standard google Meet grid layout which can display up to 16 students in the grid layout

Do students need to leave the main room when they go to the breakouts?

The short answer is no they do not need to leave the main room. When I teach using this extension most of my students stay in the main room as well as open their assigned breakout room. In that case they are simultaneously in two rooms, the main room and their assigned breakout room. The only time that is a problem is if a student forgets and leaves their microphone on in the main room, because then it would cause feedback to the other rooms.

On occasion I would have to ask them to please mute their mic in the main room or I can actually mute it for them using the Room Participants Control section in Rooms tab "Mute All Participants" button. Please also remember that if you as the teacher have your microphone on in the main room and speak, that will be heard in all the students main room which feeds back in to their breakout rooms (if they have 2 windows open, their main and their breakout room).

The good news is that if you use the slider you should never accidentally have your microphone on in multiple rooms because the slider automatically mutes all the other rooms and only turns on the microphone in the current slider positioned room. The only time your microphone would be on in multiple rooms is if you either manually turn on the microphone in the room itself (not going through the control panel) or if the slider gets out of sync which may happen if you grab the yellow dot and move it directly. I recommend using the arrows or clicking in a blank position the slider bar. If your slider does get out of sync it is very easy to get back in sync - just click on the right arrow and then the left arrow to reset everything.

I usually will make a broadcast announcement 5 minutes prior to closing of the breakouts, and when time is up I will also make a broadcast announcement asking them to leave their breakouts and "go back" to the main room. The "go back" is in quotes here because most are already in the main room as well, they never left it. However, some students do leave the main room and then re-enter the main room when they leave the breakouts. I never noticed any difference in the teaching experience, so I let the students do it either way: 1) exit the main room and go to the breakouts or 2) still stay in the main room but also go to the breakout. You may have a different experience so feel free to manage it whichever way you feel best.

How can I close the breakout rooms when it is time to finish? And, is there a countdown timer?

*** Please note that I am not 100% sure of this 40 second window described below. This is just what I heard and read on Google Meet forums. I advise everyone to test this out for themselves if this is important to you. I cannot guarantee it will work this way because I have not tested this 40 second prevent re-entry scenario ****

There are several ways to close the breakouts when time is up, however, you should first make sure that all the students have left the room. I believe for the teachers google suite there is a 40 second time requirement where the room must be completely vacant for 40 seconds before you can safely close it and no students may re-enter the room. If you need to control the room and not allow students to meet on their own in these breakouts, then you will need to wait at least 40 seconds before you close it. *** Note that I have not tested this myself. This is based on what I read on Google Meet forums ***

You may close the breakout rooms directly by closing the window like any other window or you can click on the "Close Room" button in the Room Participants Control section. If students are lingering and not leaving after you asked them to, you may remove them using the "Remove All Participants" button. After they are removed (and you wait more than 40 seconds if you need to ensure they cannot re-enter) then you may close the room

There is no timer function but that is something I will investigate as a possible future features. In my experience, the broadcast works great and it was never a problem communicating 5 minutes left and then time's up

Clicking on the slider doesn't work. Why can't I slide between rooms?

The reason is that the extension is not synced with Google Meet. The options for fixing this problem are identical with the FAQ for "Why can't I see any of my students in the Assign Participants sections?" Please click here to view those reasons and options for solving the problem

Why am I getting noisy feedback from the other rooms?

One reason is because the other rooms have their microphone and speaker are on. If you have feedback, please look at your other rooms and make sure that the microphone and speaker are off for all the rooms other than the one breakout room that your are currently in. Please control the speaker, microphone, and video from the control panel.

When students enter their breakouts, they should mute themselves in the main room. Students who have their microphones on in both the main room and the breakout rooms will cause feedback. Even if a student mutes themeselves in the main room, if other students leave their microphone on in the main room then everyone may also experience feedback.

As a teacher I recommend that you make sure all the students mute themselves in the main room when they go to their breakouts to prevent this type of feedback. There is an option in the Room Participant Control section to mute all the students. You will need to maximize the Main screen (full length) if you use that function because the extension needs to "see" all the students in the Meet list.

How can I simulate students to practice using the extension?

If you have a Google suite account then you can create simulated students by using Chrome incognito and enter any name you choose. If you do not have a Google suite account then you will need to use (extra) Google accounts to simulate students

Do all the rooms have to be Meets? Can I include jamboards or other resource links as a "room"?

Yes, "rooms" may include non-Meet links such as any resource you may want to use for teaching materials during class. Examples are a youtube video, an online news article, or a science web page which you want to cover during class. Just create a "room" for those resources, give the resource a name such as "Astronomy", and enter the appropriate url link value such as https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroids-comets-and-meteors/overview/. Please remember that your link must start with either https:// or http:// otherwise it will be considered invalid and a new google meet link will be created and stored in it's place.

Resource "rooms" can be a useful way of staging your resources that you want to cover during class. You can then open them as needed by increasing the number of breakout "rooms" and then click open. The resource rooms can be retiled the same as a Meet breakout room, but they are not available on the slider because there the slider is meant for entering a meet room which audio/visual controls.

Even if a teacher does not want to use breakout rooms for a teaching session, the teacher can still use this feature to stage resources and call them up as needed. In this case, let's say the teacher is only going to open the Main room, but the teacher may stage all the rest of the rooms as resources that will be discussed during class. So in this way the "Breakout Rooms" extension can be useful for teachers who actually never use breakout rooms. The breakout rooms for these teachers is really a staging, opening, and retiling of resources that will be taught in class

The rooms can be moved up and down in the Rooms tab by dragging and dropping. The resources are opened by the number of breakout rooms selected on the Meet tab. So if a teacher wants a split screen with the main room on one side and the resource on the other, the teacher can do that by selecting "1" as the number of breakouts and then open all rooms (just one in this case, the resource). After the resource is covered, the teacher can go back to the Rooms tab, drag and drop the next resource and open all, then retile. The new resource will open and snap into place on the right hand side. Teachers can progress through the list of their in this manner.

Another option for grouping your resources is to create a "course" to hold your resources. This way if you are teaching in the main room only (no breakouts), you can switch the course on the Meet tab to the resource "course" and open it's breakouts. You can then present your screen or these tabs in your main room. Actually, the possibilities are almost endless. Explore and try out this new feature to see what works best for you. I think you may find it quite useful to organize and present your additional online teaching materials

How can I use this extension on multiple computers?

Use the export/import everything option in the "Report" tab to download your data from your first computer. Go to your second computer and import this file. Now the two computers are in sync

Do all students need this extension installed in order to use it?

Only the teacher needs this extension installed. However, students may install it if they wish to. There are some customized color settings that students may like. Also, students may also need this breakout functionality on their own if they manage their own subgroups

Does this work with Google Classroom?

Yes, and there is a special workflow for integrating with Google Classroom which is described step by step in the Start Class with Google Classroom section on the meet tab of this extension

Will my extension data be overwritten with a new updated version?

It shouldn't be be overwritten and I try my best to avoid those situations. To protect yourself I advise everyone to download their data periodically using the Export function in the Reports tab which will download all the relevant data from the extension to your computer download folder. If something goes wrong the new version and you need to re-install the extension, you can import the data using the Import function and that should (not guaranteed) re-install your previous data. Although I cannot guarantee that your data will not be overwritten and I also cannot guarantee that an export/import will always work, the export/import I believe is a good practice in case something unexpected happens.