Skip to content

Backup for Live Sessions: Google Hangouts Meet

We've received several requests for backup options to Zoom in the event of a service disruption. Because of the College's G Suite for Education instance, Google Hangouts Meet is a suitable secondary option.

Logging in to Hangouts Meet

Logging into Hangouts Meet is slightly more complicated due to the popularity of Gmail and Google Drive as a tool that people use personally. These steps are designed to ensure that you're in your Dartmouth Google Account.

  1. Navigate to google.dartmouth.edu and click on Google Drive. This will log you into your Dartmouth version of Google Drive (https://drive.google.com/a/dartmouth.edu)

    1. Access your Dartmouth account's Google Drive from google.dartmouth.edu. Click on the Google Drive logo from the home page.
     
  2. Click on the waffle icon in the upper-right hand corner. Click Hangouts Meet from the drop-down.

Hosting a Meeting

As a backup option, this guide assumes that the meeting was no pre-scheduled and was generated on-the-fly. Otherwise, Google has features for pre-scheduling meetings via the Google Calendar.

Once you open Google Hangouts Meet from your Dartmouth account, select the option to Join or start a meeting.

Enter a name for the meeting.

Upon entering, it will give you the options to Join now, Present, or join and use a phone for audio. Click Join now.

When you join the room as a host, it will then allow you to share the details for the meeting with others. Copy joining info and then share with your students via Announcements in Canvas or other.

  • To share your screen, click Present Now. If you present on macOS, you will have to give your browser permissions to use screen recording via the system preferences.
  • To turn on machine-generated captions, click Turn on Captions.
  • To see other options for the meeting, click the three vertical dots on the bottom right side of the video.
    • Settings allow you to change your video and audio sources and settings.
    • Change layout allows you to alter how your meeting videos and screens are displayed for you.
    • Recording allows you to record the meeting and share the resulting recording with your students.

Help Resources