A lot has happened over the past 18 months and we are now making much more use of Google Drive. This post is a primer on Google Drive. All the things you need to know about using it and leveraging it's strengths.
Google Drive is principally a cloud based document storage and sharing system. Users are each allowed to store and share 5GB of documents, image, music and other media files. Users are able to access their files from anywhere and from any computer or device. The sharing and collaboration functions allow have great potential for class group work.
There are also productivity Tools built into Google Drive. The desktop browser version includes: documents(word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, Forms (survey tool) and a drawing tool. Documents can be shared by highlighting the document and using one of the two buttons arrowed.
Choose whether to make your document public or choose people you want to share it with:
Printing can be set up via Google Cloud print. At school we have shared class printers with the closest class so that students will generally only have one printer option - their class printer.
Tablets complicate the issue. Both Android and Apple devices have a Drive app available, which our students use. However the apps do differ slightly. To the best of my knowledge here's what each can do. (At this moment in time!)
Desktop Computer
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Android App
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Apple App
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Full web editing
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Basic web editing
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Basic web editing
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Move docs between folders
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Move docs between folders
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Move docs between folders
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Make a copy of a file
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Print
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Print
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Print
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Insert Images
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Insert Tables
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Copy and Paste
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Copy and Paste
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Copy and Paste
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Share
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Share
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Share
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Collaborate
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Collaborate
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Collaborate
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Any functions which Google Drive can't do, can be completed using either Pages (Apple) or Kingsoft Office (Android) or Cloudon for both.. Documents can then be saved back to Google Drive. If you are using the Drive App or Cloudon, documents will be automatically saved in your Drive
Kingsoft Office:
Cloudon:
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Worth a look:
Google Life Project; A Resource of Great Images
to Use in Classroom~Educational Technology and Mobile Learning http://t.co/9RyJRLI09J
