Nov 27, 2012

How to use Google Drive in the Art Room

Even though our subject area is hands on, art teachers still have a lot of supplies and documents to keep track of. Google Drive is a wonderful way to going digital by saving all your lesson plans, presentations and resources. One goal I had for this year was to organize all of my files so they are in one location to allow my art room to be digitized and organized in the cloud with Google Drive. This would save me tons of time because I would no longer need to look through four locations to find the rubric I was looking for. If I wanted to work from home, I would have the files with me wherever I go!

Google Drive is an easy way in which I can do it all from one location! I simply log on to Google Drive and have access to my files on my school computer, on my home lap top, on my iPad, and even on my smartphone! AMAZING! Anywhere there is internet I can log on and access my files.

Check out this video I made with a quick tutorial to use Google Drive in your own Art Room!

Google Drive also offers up to 5GB of storage for free! Another additional bonus is that you can share files with others and allow them certain privileges to edit the document or presentation or just view it. You can also share an entire folder with people. So I can have some documents that are private, shared with me and others, or public on the web. Your sharing possibilities are endless! The other art teachers and I are currently working on aligning our curriculum and just shared a document on the standards and benchmarks we are currently working on. This allows us all to view the document and also edit them, and all at the same time!

Google Drive houses documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, and drawings. The best part is that they can all be organized into folders and even color coded for us visual people who love color coding things!

Next on my list is to scan my file cabinet of handouts, brochures and other great items to add to my newly organized life in the art room! Wish me luck!

How have you used Google Drive?

Do you also have a goal of digitizing all of your teaching materials like me?

Do you use any cloud based storage options like Evernote or Dropbox?

Sara Gmitro

I love Google Drive! We use it school wide and it’s a wonderful way to share information. I use Google Drive to manage my own files (plans, presentations, etc.) and we also use it for our Allied Arts team. We can share agendas, folders and documents, and even converted our “class expectations” to a Google Form and e-mailed it home to parents for them to sign electronically.

My favorite use however, is with students. All of our students have gmail accounts, so I can share assignments with them, such as a critical response to specific pieces, personal reflections about their work and progress, and even a continuous art journal to work on whenever they have a few extra minutes at the end of class. The great thing about this is that they turn in their assignments to me digitally and I can put them into a Google Folder and grade and comment on them right from there. It’s also great to be able to view what students are writing as they work on it, so that I don’t have to wait until the assignment is turned in to make comments/suggestions.

I think Google Drive is such a great way to streamline files, assignments and communication! It helps make me more efficient as a teacher, freeing up time and energy so I can fit even more into my jam packed curriculum! :)
Tim Bogatz

I’m on board with Google Drive as well. My district has made a big push toward Google, and I really appreciate how well everything works. Personally, I love accessing my files from anywhere. Professionally, it makes it so easy to collaborate, share files and presentations, and edit each others’ work. I love it.
- http://www.theartofed.com/ Chelsie Meyer
  
  Thanks for sharing Tim! It is wonderful how the “Google Family” works oh so well together. Our teacher are really making the push towards it because of this reason. It is seamless!