What you can do with your Drive

Alice Keeler shares five ideas for your drive- and I’m thrilled with number five (how many times have I opened a file based on the title only to realize it is not the one I wanted- how a description would have helped).

Search for “Untitled”

 

(This tip came from Monica Burns Spring Cleaning Newsletter.  Since several of her suggestions related to Gmail (which we don't use), I didn’t link the entire document.

Here’s what she shared: 

Do you make lots of documents on the fly? Whether you are demoing a strategy for students or showing off a quick tip to your colleagues, you might have a lot of documents that aren’t serving a purpose anymore. In Google Drive, these documents are named “Untitled” by default. So head over to your Google Drive or OneDrive or wherever your files live and search by keyword for “Untitled.” Then, either delete these documents or give them a name and drag them to a folder.

If you start feeling overwhelmed by this task, set a timer for 10 minutes so you have a stop time. Suppose you feel like you want to keep going when the timer goes off, awesome. If not, set a reminder on your calendar to revisit this task.

Color Coding in Google Drive

 

Kasey Bell (from ShakeUpLearning) shares a short video on changing the colors of folders in your Google Drive.

Star and template

Alice Keeler has some good end-of-the-year suggestions for keeping your Google Drive organized.  Please see her post here for her suggestions.

Finding a deleted Google folder

Richard Bryne shares this video to help you retrieve a Google folder you accidentally deleted. 
This will not work if you delete assignments in Google Classroom.

Priority- it’s not just for mail anymore!

You might have noticed a new page in your Google Drive.  You will notice a priority page populated based on a Google algorithm- it will show material based on your recent work or material shared with you.  You will be able to see comments without opening the document. For additional information, please see Richard Bryne’s blog post here.

Folders versus Search

At yesterday’s escape room class, we were talking about using folders

to organize your Google Drive.  While I will admit the first year I was

very diligent about filing (and color coding the folder), once I realized

how I could search in Google Drive, I stopped.  Kasey Bell

(Shake up Learning) recently share this blog post that will

make you a search master!

REUSE (not copy)

No, this is not a recycling or environmental post- rather a suggestion (from Alice Keeler) on how to reuse forms rather than making a copy.  Just unlink the spreadsheet and delete the responses. Please see her post here.

Star your originals

Tired of losing your original documents?  Are copies and students work cluttering your drive?  Alice Keeler suggests using the STAR to keep track! Please read her post here.

What can you do in your Google Drive

Alice Keeler has a nice summary of her favorite Google Drive features - there

is something for everyone!

Search within a single folder

You remember what folder you put it in- and now you can search the folder!  Please see Alice Keeler’s directions here.

Google Search Features

In the beginning, I was so organized- every doc went into a folder and my drive looked great.  But time passes, the number of documents increases and things started to get a little messy.  If you share this trait, please read Richard Byrne’s (at Free Technology for Teachers) blog post here for a quick search tip!

It’s even easier to get things in your drive

With the Chrome extension Save to Drive, you can put things in your Google drive with just one click.  For all the details, please see Alice Keeler’s blog post here.

Google and Folders

Here’s a nice description of all you can do with Google files.  In her post, Alice Keeler outlines ways to create folders as well as add things to multiple folders.

Online doesn’t mean better

In this blog post from Alice Keeler, she outlines several ways to use Google tools to create better learning outcomes for students (and not just using online as a replacement for the same assignments or the copy machine).  Please read her thoughts here- perhaps some of the suggestions will work for your students.

Adding videos to classroom

Alice Keeler recently posted on how to easily share video to both Google Drive and Classroom.  I made a sample (using Screencastify)- and it couldn’t be easier to save!

(This sample is in my SBOE account and is not visible to folks outside of the district.)

Need Google Drive Help?

Is your Google Drive in need of some organizational help?  Are you having a hard time finding items?  Here’s a blog post with suggestions to bring an end to the chaos and clutter. Thanks to John Sowash for his post.