This week Google added a handful of new features to Google Bard including support for many more languages. Two of the new features that jumped out to me were the option to use images as prompts and the option to hear Bard responses read aloud. Both of those features are demonstrated in this short video. 

I was excited about the potential for image upload option to help find image sources and or to identify what is in an image. Unfortunately, in my early testing of Bard’s image upload feature it didn’t do either of those things well. In fact, as you can see in my video it did a terrible job of handling my image of the Mt. Abram snowfields. However, as you can also see in my video, an unexpected benefit of using the image upload feature is that Bard presented some ideas for future research prompts. 

The read-aloud function in Bard worked about as well as expected. Having Bard read aloud instructions for completing a task is one possible use for that new feature. In my video I presented the use case of having Bard read aloud instructions for making fish tacos. 

Video – Two New Google Bard Features to Try

More Google Bard tutorials for teachers and students: