A few days ago, I had the pleasure of sitting in on a faculty meeting. I listened to the principal talk about how she couldn’t find her Drive. She was so used to having the black bar at the top of her Google account to help her navigate between her Gmail, Drive, and other Google services.
This past weekend, Google changed the look of their user interface and she couldn’t figure out where her Drive was. She kept asking herself “where is my Drive?” and she was resistant to ask others “has anyone seen my Drive?” because they probably all would think that she was crazy. When she finally asked others “has anyone else lost their Drive?” she realized that she wasn’t crazy and she wasn’t alone and that yes, in fact, lots of people has lost their Drive.
I say this because I know there are some people who don’t even know what Drive is and they may be reluctant to ask someone “what is The Drive?” or “where do I find The Drive?” Maybe they don’t want people to think that they are crazy. If you know what Google Drive is, great! Pass is on, share the knowledge, help others. If you don’t know what Google Drive is I want you to know two things:
1. You are not alone.
2. It’s okay.
I can help you find your Drive. I promise.
Think of a file cabinet that you would keep in your classroom. Inside of the file cabinet you may have file folders and inside of those file folders are papers. Papers, that you wish to store away for use later. Google Drive is just like a file cabinet. You can create folders and you can save (store) your documents inside of those folders. The only difference is that it is located online, and all of your items are in the cloud, not in your classroom. Your items will remain in your Drive until you are ready to retrieve them.
So, where is your Drive?
When you log into your Google account, click on the nine small squares in the top right hand corner of your screen. A drop-down menu will appear giving you a number of options. You want to click on the blue, green and yellow triangle that has the word “Drive” underneath it. This will take you to your Drive.
What goes in your Drive?
If anyone shares a file with you via email, it can be saved to your Drive. You can also create and save things in Drive. Your students can turn in work without ever handing you an actual sheet of paper- this can all go to your drive! If you want to create a document, a presentation (slideshow), a form to use for a quiz/test/survey- you can do all of this in Google Drive.
Why would you want to use Drive?
The best part about Google Drive is that unlike a real file cabinet, you can take Google Drive with you anywhere. If you have internet access- whether on a tablet, cell phone, laptop, or a desktop- you can access your Drive. No more carrying around external hard drives or flash (thumb) drives. Everything that you save in Google Drive is saved in the cloud! (We can talk about the cloud later.)
Go forth and start saving things in your Drive. You’ll be glad that you did.
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