The Electric Educator: The Two Commandments of Google Drive

Follow these two rules and you will have a much more effective, and pleasant experience as you collaborate with your students.

Always DIVIDE your Document

You may have experienced the chaos of working on a shared Google Document with 15, 20, or 30 individuals - what a disaster! No one knows where to type and ends up writing on top of each other, deleting work, etc. When collaborating with more than 10 people, it is important that the workspace is structured in a way that clearly identifies where each person is assigned to edit.

Google Docs - insert a table and add each students name in the first column.

Example: https://goo.gl/RLBXms

Google Presentation - Assign each student to a slide

Example: https://goo.gl/pHySMn

Google Sheets - Assign each student to a row.

Example: https://goo.gl/U3sSNu

Always SHARE your Document

When documents are shared so that “anyone with the link can edit” you lose the ability to hold students accountable for their work. This leads to sloppy, lazy, and uninspired contributions. SHARE your document, presentation, or spreadsheet with your student using their email address (or assign it using Google Classroom). This will force students to sign into their Google Account and will record all of their contributions.