I've Got a Cart Full of Chromebooks, Part 3: Sharing & Collaborating with Google Drive

At this year's parent open house, lots of moms and dads asked me questions about supplies and notebook setup: Does my son need a 3-ring binder?  How many inches?  What tab labels should my daughter write on her dividers?

The truth is, once we're fully running with our Google accounts and have daily access to our Chromebooks, there might not be enough paper floating around in our classrooms to warrant much fuss about these issues.  Instead, we can set up digital notebooks in Google Drive for organizing all (or almost all) of the work students do each day.

Why Google Drive?
Let's check out the SAMR model for the bigger picture of what we want to do with tech in our classrooms.

If we are to take advantage of what a digital transformation has to offer, then we must move beyond doing traditional work in a digital format.  Additionally, we must offer a more substantial rationale for our tech choices than "It's more fun/engaging for the kids."  The key word is transformation: What learning experiences can we offer our students that we could never pull off without the tech?

I am not suggesting here that everything we do must hit the Redefinition level.  However, we should strive to keep the image above in mind and push ourselves to develop lessons that leverage technology to arm our students with the critical thinking and collaboration skills that members of an active, thoughtful citizenry need.

For that reason, Google Drive is the workhorse of my classroom.  It allows my students to collaborate with one another asynchronously and in real-time, and it gives them a space for working efficiently with collaborators throughout the world, as well.  Drive makes for easy and constant revision and iteration, and I can provide more timely, more human feedback via text and voice comments.  Apps that hook into Drive offer opportunities for multimedia projects, remixes, and mash-ups, and housing their products in a digital space makes the jump to publication much more manageable.

But what about Edmodo?
When I decided to make the switch to housing most of my students' work in Drive, one of the biggest questions I wanted to answer for myself was "What does this offer that Edmodo doesn't?"  The kids know Edmodo and tend to be proficient in using it.  Widespread use throughout our school and system has made parents comfortable with it, as well.  However, Edmodo doesn't offer much to support student collaboration, nor does it play well with other tools.  So while I do use Edmodo still for quick notifications and occasional posting of resources, Drive tends to meet our current needs in ways that Edmodo does not.

How do you set it up?
For our general purposes, I start my students out with two folders:

• a personal class folder they can edit, in which they create their assignments (in our class, we call it their writer's notebook) - each student shares this with me so that we can communicate about their work throughout the year
• a  view-only folder in which I'll place documents they need for their work - students have access to this folder but cannot make changes to documents in it

Step 1 is to make that view-only folder, which I create myself, naming it "[Class Name] Handouts" or some other informative label.  Then I share it with students using the Can View setting.  Students will be able to view all documents I place in this folder but will not be able to change or move them, making it an easy place to deliver electronic handouts.  

See the video below created by the ed tech facilitator for Norfolk Public Schools to guide you through this process with both teacher and student views.  The video also demonstrates how students can make a copy of a document if they do need to place it in their own folder and edit it (i.e.lab reports, templates, etc).

Step 2 requires the students to create the class folders that will house their work for the year.  They make these, naming them using criteria I specify, then they share it with me at my email address, giving me Can Edit rights.  Once they've completed this step, I'll have access to every document they place in the folder.  I can drop in digitally as they work and offer feedback or assess a class's progress without lugging around stacks of notebooks.

Here's a video walk-through of Step 2 from the student perspective.  Please note that, for consistency's sake, you may want to develop folder naming protocol at the school-, grade-, or team-level.

For those who are a little more comfortable with Google tools, there are ways to automate folder setup using Google templates and scripts.  If you're interested in learning more, check out the instructions here.  

Once your folders are up and running, you've got a powerful system for managing student work and a space in which students can collaborate with others both within your building and beyond.  What ideas do you have for using shared folders in Google Drive?  Please share your thoughts in the comments below. 

Check out the first two posts in this series:
Part 1: I've Got a Cart Full of Chromebooks. Now What?
Part 2: HP Pavilion 14 Tour

Laren Hammonds is an 8th grade English teacher at Rock Quarry Middle School.  She's @_clayr_ on Twitter and blogs about her classroom experiences at Game to Learn.