Using Google Meet for teaching with MS Edge

In an earlier post, I said that Google Meet seems to use a lot of systems resources. Accordingly, the PC fan often comes on during a session, and at the fastest speed, so is quite noisy. Well, from around the world wide web, it seems like this is a major problem, even for high-end machines. The screen is jittery, the mouse drags its feet around the screen and there are those annoying screen freezes of two or three seconds. Of course, for machines with fans, the noise is too distracting, and fan-less machines can become overheated. 

Salvation. I have just found out (from a forum) that the best way to use Google Meet is not to use the Google Chrome browser. As a Windows devotee, I would use Microsoft Edge, but Safari and Opera are also good. I ran Google Meet in Edge and found it to be an excellent experience. I hosted an online class with full video, shared Libre Office WP screens (with scrolling), shared HTML pages, shared video, used the whiteboard and sent messages. The fan did not come on once and everything was smooth and responsive. I did check out the Windows resource monitor a couple of times during the session and found that CPU usage did not exceed 70%, and was mostly around 40%.

I am sure those master programmers at Google will correct the situation soon but we no longer need to wait for them to do it.

Computer hardware and software issues

I use an early generation I3 HP laptop with 4Mb memory for online teaching. It is an excellent system and very productive, despite being seven years old. I do not plan to replace it until the issue of Windows 11 compliant systems is finalised. I do not intend to switch to Windows 11 yet, but, of course, do not want to be caught out with an operating system not supported, whenever that happens (2023?).

Incidentally, my backup PC is even older. It is a 2009 Acer laptop using an Intel Centrino. It works.  The disk access is slow, so I have all the files I use with students on an SD card. When I use it the online students have not noticed any difference except for the occasional sound blip.

For the online teacher - Google Meet or Zoom? Surprisingly, Google Meet seems to use twice the amount of systems resources as Zoom on my system. Meet occupies 540Mb of internal memory, whereas Zoom occupies 256Mb. CPU utilisation, with any users, is 33% on Meet and 14% on Zoom. The problem for Meet users that this presents is that the CPU fan is in continuous operating mode during Meet classes. Accordingly, in Meet the system is less responsive and adds a few decibels of noise. 

  

Zoom or Google Meet - which is the best?

I use both. They are different but in many ways operate in a similar way. Other platforms, such as Microsoft Team, are also good, but I do not use them, so any information I could give would be via a third party. 

In this blog, I will mainly focus on personal experience using these two platforms for classroom-type teaching. They work really well for classes. I do not think they are entirely suitable for webinars - but this blog is not about webinars. 

Zoom is not available in Syria, but I understand that Google Meet can be used in Syria from personal accounts. Being based in the Middle East, this is an important issue for me. Correct me if I am wrong, or out-of-date.