Heather Schremmer's Technology Tools for Educators: Scratching the Surface of Google Drive's Amazing Features

Today I want to talk to you about some of the amazing features of Google Drive. Google Drive offers a multitude of features. During Today's blog post I will be simply scratching the surface of the amazing features of Google Drive. I am going to discuss Google Forms, revision history, sharing capabilities, and getting Google Drive access on your computer.

Google Forms

What is Google Forms?

A tool used to create polls, quizzes, and surveys than can be accessed through your Google Drive.

How do you access and create Google Forms?

Access your Google Drive
Click New and select Google Forms

Begin by giving the form a name

Select your question type- multiple choice, short answer, paragraph, check-boxes, drop-down, linear scale, or multiple choice grid

Type your question

If needed, Google Forms allows you to insert pictures or videos into a question

Click on the plus sign to add more questions

If you want the quiz to be computer graded, you can achieve this by selecting settings. In the settings you will select Quizzes and make this a quiz. At this point, you will be able to select the correct answers and assign point values.

At this point, you can preview your form or change the color palette of the form, if you so desire.
If you are happy with your Google Form, you can click Send.

By clicking send, you will get three options. You can send your form through email, get a shareable link, or a code to embed.

Lastly, to access the results, you simply click on the Responses tab on your Google Form. The results will appear in real-time after the students submit the form.

The results can be viewed in Google Form or uploaded to a spreadsheet.

How can Google Forms be useful in the Classroom?

Google Forms can be used as a quick formative assessment, such as an exit ticket or admit slip. Google Forms can be used for tests/quizzes, a get to know you activity at the start of the school year, or a fun way to gather statistical data for a statistics units.

Click here to access a Google Form quiz I created for my 6th grade math students on area.

Revision History

What is revision history?

Revision history allows you to see any revisions that have been made to a Google Doc, Sheet, Drawing or Slide. Revision history gives you the capability to revert back to an older version of the file.

How do you use revision history?

Access the Google Doc, Sheet, Drawing, or Slide
Select File from the top menu and click on See Revision History (Ctrl + Alt + Shift + H)

At this point a side-bar will appear on the side.

Using the side bar you will see the revisions organized by date.
By clicking on the date, you will see all the different versions of the file from that day.
By clicking on a certain revision, you will be able to see that version of the file.
If you wish to revert back to that version, you select Restore This Revision.

Why is revision history an amazing feature?

This a great feature for shared documents. If a change has been made to the file that was unwanted, it can be undone. It allows you to see who made changes, when the changes were made, and what changes were made to a file. It can even be a useful feature when you are the only person editing the file. Unlike Microsoft Word, it allows you to revert back to a previous version after the file has been saved.

Sharing Files

What is sharing of files?

Sharing files on Google Drive allows you to share files with other users through email or a link. You can share the file in view only mode, can comment mode, or edit mode.

How do you share files?

There are multiple ways to share a file on Google Drive. I will explain one of the ways to share a file.

Access the Google Doc, Sheet, Drawing, or Slide you wish to share.
Click on Share in the top, right-hand corner of the file.

A shareable link will be provided that can be copied or you can type in the email addresses you wish to share the file with.
Before you share the link with others, ensure that you have set up your sharing parameters. You need to pick view only, can comment, or can edit.

What are the benefits of sharing files in education

Sharing files is a great way to complete collaborative projects between students. Sharing files can be a great tool for sharing information such as, agendas, meeting notes, or important forms, between staff members.

Accessing Google Drives Files on Computer

What are the benefits?

This feature allows you to access and edit your Google Drive files on your computer. Using this feature you can access and edit your Google Drive files, when you are not connected to the Internet. The next time your computer is connected to the internet it will sync with your Google Drive online.

How to access Google Drive files on computer?

Click here to install drive on your computer.
After drive is installed your Google Drive files will slowly sync with a Google Drive folder on your computer.
You will be able to access any of the files from your Google Drive as you would any other file on your computer.

Files will automatically sync back-up with Google Drive.

As a honorable mention to my favorite features of Google Drive, I would like to quickly mention Google Drawings. Google Drawings allows you to create diagrams, mind maps, and graphic organizers. The drawings can be saved as pdfs or image files. Below is an example of a Google Drawing I created.