Tips for Google Drive!

Since 2020, the use of technology in the classroom has sky-rocketed. With school shut-downs, teachers were thrown into all sorts of overwhelming situations with new expectations. Even as a "young" teacher in 2020, I was skittish at first with every new piece of technology. EVERYTHING online?! How?! When?! Where?! (just a few of my frequently asked questions during the time) Ugh– please never take me back to then. 

Now that time has passed, so have most of my insecurities. That crash course in survival taught me a few things - and now I’m loving some of the freedom and innovation technology is allowing me as a teacher - especially with Google Drive.  Here are a few of my favorite things:

Google Docs

Google Citation Builder

As an English teacher, I LOVE having a citation builder right in the document! It is pretty slick and easy to use as well. No more students trying to find sketchy citation builders online. 

If this is news to you– here are the simple steps:

1. Go to Tools
2. Citations
3. Choose your format
4. Add Citation Source
5. Select source type
6. Complete information
7. To add an intext citation- hover over the completed citation and click site 
8. To add the works cited- Click Insert Works Cited

So simple & so efficient! I hope you love it as much as I do! 

Page Orientation

You can now make one page of your document a different orientation than the rest in Google Docs. LOVE! Here is a short video on how to do this.

Google Forms

I use Google Forms for quizzes, gathering data, and so much more! But did you know you can now add audio?  This is handy when I have students who need questions read aloud to them. This has saved me so much time and is not much more work. You can even have a student answer with audio. Check this website out for all the tips.

Need more ideas on how to utilize Google Forms- Here is a list.

SlidesGo, Slides Carnival, Slides Mania are some fantastic websites with FREE templates for Google Slides. These templates make presentations look more professional and fresh!

Google frequently puts out updates with various shortcuts (sometimes without telling anyone). Someone keeping up and sharing them could be a full-time job, so keep checking out places like YouTube for updates and handy tutorials!

What features do you love about Google?

by Erin-Jane Stevens, Contributing Teacher/Writer. Erin-Jane Stevens is a middle school ELA teacher who strives to bring excitement to each class she sees.  She continues to find and create fun, new, and rigorous ways to captivate students’ attention and grow their love for ELA.