Google Vids is a simple video editor built into Google Workspace, laid out much like Google Slides and able to be created and shared directly through Google Classroom. It's a genuinely accessible way to get students making video content, from top ten countdown videos to book trailers, persuasive advertisements, and narrated storybooks.

Have you tried Google Vids yet? If not, here are a few reasons I think it's worth a spot in your teacher tech toolkit.

What is Google Vids?

Google Vids is a relatively new addition to Google Workspace, only around a year or two old, and it's a genuinely simple video editor. If you're already comfortable with Google Slides, you'll find Google Vids familiar. The layout and functionality are very similar.

That familiarity is a genuine advantage for anyone hesitant about video editing tools. A lot of teachers avoid video projects because the software feels intimidating, timelines, render settings, effects panels. Google Vids sidesteps most of that by borrowing the interface you already know from building slide decks.

It integrates smoothly with the rest of Google Workspace, and importantly, it can be created and accessed directly through Google Classroom. The fewer separate tools students need to log into, the easier your life becomes as the teacher managing all of it. Keeping everything inside one ecosystem removes a lot of avoidable friction.

That's a bigger deal than it sounds. Every extra login, every separate app, is another chance for a lesson to stall while someone can't remember a password or find the right tab. Staying inside Google Workspace for as much as possible is one of the simplest ways to keep a tech-based lesson actually running smoothly.

What's a simple first activity to try with Google Vids?

A top ten style video. Think top ten inventions from a particular era, top ten places to visit, or any list-based topic relevant to your subject.

Students can incorporate slides, transitions, images, music, and text to build something genuinely polished. I'd suggest keeping the length short, around a minute, since getting timing right in a video is challenging enough without also managing a longer runtime on a first attempt.

Once students have one short video under their belt, extending the length or complexity on the next task becomes far less daunting. It's a good example of scaffolding a new tool the same way you'd scaffold any other new skill, starting small and building confidence before increasing the challenge.

Can Google Vids be used for something like a book trailer?

Yes, and this is one of my favourite ideas to bring across.

Years ago, working alongside a fantastic teacher librarian and headteacher, we set students the task of creating book trailers based on texts from our wide reading program, using a tool called Animoto at the time. The results were genuinely excellent.

Animoto was a freemium tool, meaning the best features sat behind a paywall. A lot of what made that project work can now be replicated using Google Vids instead, at no extra cost. The same idea extends easily to movie trailers or story trailers for any text you're studying.

What made that original project genuinely successful wasn't the tool itself, it was the clear, engaging brief. Students were building something for a real purpose, promoting a book to their peers, rather than completing a task purely for a mark. That's worth keeping in mind whichever tool you end up using: the brief matters more than the software.

What about a more persuasive or advertising-focused task?

If you're working on persuasive writing or marketing skills, try having students build a 30-second advertisement, persuading someone to buy something, try something, or follow something.

It's a simple brief, but it puts genuine pressure on students to be concise and convincing within a tight timeframe, which tends to sharpen persuasive technique more than a longer, looser format would.

Constraints like a strict 30-second limit are genuinely useful teaching tools in their own right. Students can't rely on padding or repetition to make their case. They have to prioritise their strongest points and cut everything else, which is a skill that transfers well beyond this one activity.

Are there any other creative ways to use Google Vids?

A visual essay or a narrated storybook are both worth trying. Combine text, narration, and visual storytelling elements to build something more reflective or literary, rather than purely informational.

You're really only limited by your imagination here. Once you start exploring what Google Vids can do, more ideas tend to surface the more you use it.

A visual essay works particularly well for subjects where students are building an argument over time, layering evidence, images, and narration the same way they would structure a written essay, just in a different medium. It's a genuinely different way for students to demonstrate the same analytical thinking you'd otherwise be marking on paper.

Any tips for introducing Google Vids to a class for the first time?

Model it yourself first. When I introduced Google Vids to a couple of my own classes, I built either a complete or partially complete example beforehand, so students knew exactly what was expected before they started their own.

That one step makes a genuine difference. Students spend far less time guessing at the brief, and far more time actually creating.

It also gives you a natural way to set expectations around length, tone, and complexity without writing a lengthy set of instructions. A well-chosen example communicates all of that at a glance, in a way a written rubric alone often can't.

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Tristan