Chapter 8 Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is a communication platform by Google and includes tools such as messaging and video chat. Google Hangouts is also famous for its video conferencing feature; you can video chat with up to 25 people at the same time and message a team of up to 150 people. These features make Google Hangouts an excellent tool for staying connected with collaborators, employers, and friends.
An additional bonus feature of Hangouts is that it syncs automatically across different devices. That is, you can start a Hangout on your phone and continue your chat on another device such as your laptop.
8.0.1 Accessing your Google Hangouts account
Like the other Google services we’ve talked about, you need a Google account in order to use Hangouts. To access your Hangouts account, You can either go to the Hangouts URL at https://hangouts.google.com or click on the start menu located on the lower left hand corner of your Chromebook and searching for “Hangouts”. If you’re not already logged in to your Google account, first you’ll need to log in. Here’s a screenshot of Jane’s Google Hangouts screen:
Google Hangouts Picture
On this screen you can see that there are options for making a video call, a phone call, or sending a text message.
8.0.2 Video chats
You can initiate a video call by clicking on the “Video Call” button located at the center of the screen.
Video call button
When this button is clicked, a new window will open for the video call. Google Hangouts may request permission to use your computer’s camera and microphone for the call. If you see this request, you should click “Allow” to continue your call.
Granting Google Hangouts access to microphone and camera
Once you’ve given permission, you’ll be taken to your call. You can invite people to your video call in two ways. One option is to enter their names or email addresses directly into the invitation box and click “Invite.” Another way is to click the “Copy Link To Share” button and paste this link into an your own email invitation. This second option is an easy way to invite a large number of people to a video call.
Inviting people
Notice that if you have already exchanged emails with someone, meaning they are in your Gmail address book, they will automatically show up when you begin to type in the invitation box. In this case, we see John Doe’s contact information when we just type “John” into the box.
Auto-complete of contacts
During the video call, the default is for your microphone and video camera to be on so that the other people on the call can both see and hear you. You can choose to mute your audio and/or video feeds by clicking on the microphone and/or camera buttons at the bottom of the screen. Sometimes it can be useful to mute your audio if you are listening to other people talking and don’t want noises from your environment to distract you from the call. You can un-mute by simply clicking the appropriate button again. You can also click the three dots at the very right corner of the screen to see options for the call: share screen, fullscreen, chat, help, and feedback.
Call options
If you want to share your screen with people currently in your call simply click on the “Share Screen” option and choose either to share your entire screen or just one specific application window that you have open. If you share your entire screen, the other people on your call will be able to see everything on your screen, even when you click between applications. If you only share a single application window, they won’t be able to see things on your screen that aren’t in that application window. Sharing a single application can be useful if you want to be able to check your email during the call without letting everyone else see your messages!
Share screen options
Once you’ve shared your screen, you can stop sharing at any time by pressing on the “STOP” button located at the top of the screen.
If you want to make the video call into fullscreen you can select the “Fullscreen” on the option menu.
Call options
If you need to send a text message to everyone in the video call, you can choose “Chat” from option menu. A message window will then open in the lower as the one shown below on the lower left corner of your call screen. Simply type your message and press the arrow to send!
Message pop-up
If you need more information or have any questions about using Google Hangouts, choose “Help” from the option menu. This will open a new window with tutorials and guides on how to solve problems and explanations on how to use Google Hangouts.
Hangouts help
8.0.3 Phone calls
You can also make a phone call in Google Hangouts. This allows you to contact someone through a phone number instead of via email address. You make a call by clicking on the “Phone Call” button on the main Hangouts screen
Phone call button
To enter a phone number you can press on the “New Conversation” button on the left menu. After entering the number you can select what country you want to call and simply press “Call”. The first time you make a phone call from Hangouts, you may be asked to register a phone number where they can contact you if there are any problems with the call. Follow the instructions onscreen to do this.
Making calls
8.0.4 Messaging
You can also message other people with Google accounts through Hangouts. To start a message, click on the “Message” button.
Message button
Then you can enter the name, email address, or phone number of the person you want to message. When you find the correct person you can simply click on them and that will open a conversation box. Type your message in the box and hit enter to send the message!
Starting a conversation
8.0.5 Group conversations
In Hangouts, you can have a video/audio/text conversation with multiple people at the same time. You can have a conversation with up to 150 people and a video call with up to 25 people at the same time. Everyone who wants to join a group conversation must use Hangouts. For a group video call, just enter in multiple names and/or email addresses when starting your call. In text messaging, click on the “New group” link and then enter in the names and or email addresses and or phone numbers for all of the people in the group.
New group
8.0.6 More specifics on using Google Hangouts
Google Hangouts is an excellent way to communicate with outhers about your work, all through a web browser or your Chromebook! We’ve covered some of the main features of Hangouts here. If you want to know more, you can search for tutorials on YouTube.com or check out Google’s guide to getting started with Hangouts at the following web address: https://gsuite.google.com/learning-center/products/hangouts/get-started/#!/