Google Drive

    The piece of technology I wanted to review this week is Google Drive. Up until this Wednesday, I had no idea that it even existed. After coming home from work, I had wanted to get started on our Investigation Journals. I watched the video that gave details on how to get set up, and proceeded to do so. My first step was to make a copy of the template provided to us, and it would be saved to your "drive." I cannot tell you how many times I clicked around on my computer trying to find out where this mysterious template went. I checked downloads, Microsoft Office, you name it- I checked. Growing frustrated, I knew I had to reach out to Professor Bouwman. 

 

    Thankfully it was Wednesday, and I was able to access his virtual office hours via zoom. I was getting a walk through of the assignment when the word "drive" came up again. I told him I checked my computer and I couldn't find it. It was then I learned that my University of Michigan-Dearborn email, (being associated with Google) had a drive already attached to it. I had no idea that if you are logged into a Google based email that you can save documents to drive.google.com/. Learning about Google Drive this week was a life saver, as I’ve used it at work for the very first time too.

 

    I've been a substitute for a few years, but this year school year has been obviously different. I learned that I would be taking on a long-term assignment, and that I would be receiving a new email address associated with my school district. This is something I had never received before despite being a district/premier sub. This new email would also be Google based. Mind you, I still use my AOL email as my primary. When you have the same email for 20 years, you don't want to fix what isn't broken, but I know I have to get with the times! After logging onto my work email this past Thursday, I now knew that it came with Google Drive. This discovery turned out to simplify lesson plans better than ever.

 

    Through my email, I discovered that a lot of teachers in our school were sharing lesson plans that I was able to add to my Google Drive. This took so much stress out of lesson planning. The biggest bonus to using Google Drive is when a teacher sends you a lesson plan that you can edit. Having an outline for a presentation that you only have to modify slightly can make hours of work turn into minutes. As you edit your work, it is constantly saving. This was kind of an ah-ha moment for me- as a sub, when I told students that the bell was going to ring soon, and to “save their work on Google Classroom” they looked at me a little weird. Google already saves your work for you, there’s no need to save it again. 

 

    I’m closing out this blog with a positive review on Google Drive- I know I’m late to this discovery, but better late than never! Google Drive is going to make the school year a little less stressful for me, and I can’t wait to sharpen my skills with it.