Mastering Google Drive: A Comprehensive Guide for Students

Google Drive is a vital tool for students, offering free cloud storage for uploading, sending, and sharing files and documents. It seamlessly connects with other Google applications like Docs, Sheets, and Slides, consolidating your files in a single, accessible location. This guide will provide a comprehensive overview of Google Drive's features and functionalities, empowering students to effectively utilize this platform for academic success.

Understanding the Basics of Google Drive

Google Drive is a free cloud storage service that allows you to keep your files in one place. With Google Drive, you can easily organize and edit your files on your computer or mobile device. It connects other Google apps, such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Accessing Google Drive

To access Google Drive, simply navigate to the Google Drive website and log in with your Google account.

Uploading and Managing Files

Uploading Files to Google Drive

To upload files, start by locating the blue "New" button, typically found in the upper-left corner of the Drive window or page. Clicking this button will reveal a dropdown menu with several options, including "File upload." Select "File upload" and a file explorer window will appear.

Next, click the file that you want to upload. You'll see the file on your Drive homepage since it was uploaded recently. This process can take several minutes to several hours, depending on the file size and your Internet connection.

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Uploading from Mobile Devices

When using Google Drive on mobile, avoid uploading or downloading files over a data connection. To upload from a mobile device, tap the "+" icon, usually located in the bottom-right corner of the screen. Alternatively, you can select Scan document or Take photo. Tap a photo, video, or document to select it.

Creating New Documents

Google Drive allows you to create new documents directly within the platform, seamlessly integrating with Google's suite of productivity tools. To create a new document, locate the blue "New" button in the upper-left corner of the Drive window. Clicking this will present a menu with options to create various types of documents.

The options include:

Google Docs: Creates a Word-like document. Enter your document's text, images, and so on.
Google Sheets: Creates an Excel-like document.
Google Slides: Creates a PowerPoint-like document.

Sharing and Collaboration Features

The ability to share documents and work collaboratively is one of the most useful things about Google Drive!

Sharing Files with Specific People

To share a file with another person, click a file that you want to share with another person. Then, click the "Share" icon. This is at the top-right corner of the document. Enter the email addresses of the people you want to share with. You can then set permissions, such as "View only," "Commenter," or "Editor."

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Sharing Files with a Link

If you need to share with a lot of people, you can provide general access to those who have the unique link. Keep in mind that you shouldn't share documents with sensitive information this way. To do this, select "Anyone with the link" from the dropdown menu. Note that the link will default to be viewable by Hampshire College accounts only! A file link will be copied to your clipboard.

Shared Drives for Team Collaboration

Shared drives are shared spaces where teams can easily store, search, and access their files anywhere, from any device. Unlike files in My Drive, files in a shared drive belong to the team instead of an individual. If members leave, the files stay in the Shared Drive so your group can keep sharing content and information without interruption.

If you plan to collaborate with a group of people on a recurring basis, such as within a department or for a class, we strongly suggest creating a shared folder or a shared drive. Then every item placed in this folder will automatically be shared with the group.

Creating a Shared Drive: Since students do not have the ability to create a Shared Drive, you will need to ask an active employee or student advisor to create one for you. Once they create the Shared Drive for you and add you as a Manager, you can remove them. The shared drive creator is not responsible for the content in a student organization's Shared Drive.
Moving Files to a Shared Drive: If you have Editor access on individual files and you are a Contributor or higher on a Shared Drive, you can drag the file(s) into the Shared Drive so that your group can gain ownership. All members of the Shared Drive will gain access and be able to see everything inside the Shared Drive. If you want to be able to move folders, you need to have Edit access on the folder and you need to be a full Manager on the Shared Drive. You also need to be granted a special temporary permission to move folders.

Google Drive and Google Classroom

Google Classroom allows students to submit work. To submit work in Google Classroom students must view the full assignment instructions to add work to the “Your work” bubble. Google Classroom is designed to organize assignments on the Classwork page. The landing page is the Stream, where you can post announcements and students can ask questions about assignments.

Navigating Google Classroom

Create topics on the Classwork page and organize assignments under the topics. The challenge can be to get students to go to the Classwork page to see the organized assignments. Keep reminding students to go to the Classwork page. Students will locate the assignment stripe on the Classwork page. Assignments they have already completed are greyed out. Remind students to look for assignments that are not greyed out to ensure that they SUBMIT THEM if they have completed the assignment.

Submitting Assignments

When students click on the assignment stripe it expands to provide a preview. However, students need to click on the “View instructions” button to not only see the full assignment, but to submit their work. Students use the “Add or create” button to add their work to the assignment. In the upper right of the full assignment screen is the “Your work” bubble. This displays the submission status. “Assigned” indicating that it is not submitted. “Turned in” is awaiting to be graded. The submission button in the “Your work” bubble changes depending on whether or not there is an assignment attachment.

Ownership and Comments

When students submit a Google Doc, Sheets, Slides, or Sites ownership is switched over to the teacher. The student becomes a viewer of the document. This means they can NOT see in document comments until the document has been returned. Private Comments are always visible regardless of submission status. Students can leave questions for the teacher or provide information about their submission in the Private Comments.

Additional Storage and Shared Drives

Expanded Shared Drives are available for free, with a 150 GB, 500 GB, or 1 TB maximum capacity. Expanded Shared Drives are available first-come-first-served until we can evaluate the ratio of demand vs. Additional storage is only offered at $1,440 annually for 10 TB of storage. There are no other smaller quantities available to purchase. Additional paid storage can only be applied to Shared Drives. Once you have informed us you want the Passthrough Pay Option, you will need to complete an MOU.

Best Practices and Security

Your account and all content on Google's servers are protected by a 128-bit TLS (SSL) certificate given by GeoTrust Global CA. Only if you make your password publicly known. (Note: If the FBI or NSA wants to look at them, they can.

Transferring Ownership

You may want to assign someone else to be the “owner” of a file or folder. The owner has complete control over access, visibility, and can choose to delete the file. If the new owner already has edit access, skip to Step 4. Some of us may have Hampshire-related documents “owned” by a personal Google account. A best practice would be to transfer these items to be owned by your Hampshire account. While you can transfer ownership between Hampshire College accounts, you can’t transfer ownership to or from a non-Hampshire account!

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