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"Recently, we discovered a feature of Google Drive that has changed how we prepare and access materials and resources for our students. As we attempt to make all curricula digital and thus make it available to all students, the idea of using PDFs was always a problem. PDFs are just not editable in most situations, and this was an issue when it came to modifying and differentiating documents. Adobe Acrobat was our "go to" application for this type of conversion, but it was costly and often hard to come by in an educational setting. Note: We still use Adobe Acrobat for complex projects or documents that do not convert well in Google Drive. With the most recent update to Google Drive, OCR (Optical Character Recognition) capabilities are better and easier than ever."

"Like Apple and Microsoft, Google also wants a place in your classroom. Google Apps for Education is a free suite of cloud-based tools created by Google to use in your classroom. You probably knew that part, and likely have a vague awareness of what's available (Google Drive, Google Form, etc.) But Sylvia Duckworth has gone a step further, giving you an extended metaphor (a train), a graphic (with color), and a brief description of each "stop" of the Google Apps for Education train."

"Google Drive-formerly Google Docs-has come quite a way in nearly a decade of existence. Originally launched as Writely, a startup's clever collaborative word processor, Google quickly acquired the app, changed the name to Google Docs, and released it as a new way to help people work together more efficiently using little more than a browser. "

"Google Drive is one of the fundamental tools in our digital toolkits as teachers and educators. Whether you want to compose a document, create a presentation, design a sheet, or share a beautiful drawing you made, Google Drive provides you with the tools to do that on any device and anywhere you are with an internet connection "

"Folders allow you to organize your files in Google Drive. They also allow you to more efficiently share a collection of documents. If you've switched to the new Google Drive you can create a folder by clicking on the reddish "NEW" button and choosing folder. The "Create" button provides the same options if you have not switched over."

"I've taught about Google Drive/Docs many times in person and virtually. Many teachers have decided to completely move all of their files to the cloud to store them and edit them via Google Drive. The idea of having access to your stuff from any device connected to the web is really appealing; coupled with the collaboration features that Docs offers."

"As the end of the 2012-2013 school year draws near, it may be advantageous for teachers to clean up their Google Drive. Not only will it be a new start for the 2013-2014 school year to delete files that are not needed that the teachers created, BUT removing student creations that were shared with the teachers will certainly provide for a clean start in the coming school year. As a added help, five videos have been created to help in this task. I urge teachers to take an hour of their time and remove items that are not needed in their Google Drive."

"Do you like discovering new Google related tips? I sure do! And that's why I'm starting a new series this Tuesday featuring 1 awesome Google tip each day, for 21 days!  The tips will cover a wide variety of Google products we all love such as: Google Search, Chrome, Drive, Plus, Maps, Calendar, Gmail, Adsense, YouTube and more! Each tip will be presented as an embedded Google+ post on this page, and if needed - followed by screenshots and examples to further explain the point."

"Google announced at its annual developer conference Thursday that it's bringing Google Drive to iOS devices. Google Drive was released soon after the announcement. It's a free and universal app, designed for both the iPhone and iPad."

"Last Friday I was asked if I could share instructions for teachers and students using the latest version of the Google Drive for iPad app. I'm in the process of organizing all of my screenshots into a PDF. In the meantime, I have the following video overview of how to use the basic features of Google Drive iPad. At the end of the video I offer a tip about using multiple sign-in on shared iPads. "

"Today Google released two standalone apps for Google Docs and Google Sheets. They are available for iOS and Android, and perhaps most exciting of all, another new app for Slides is on its way. So, how are they different to the iOS Drive app? Let's find out."

"Google Keep, Google's easy to use note taking app, is a great resource for students and teachers. Here are some of the features: * Easily, quickly, Create notes, lists, and audio notes * Add photos to any note * Hide and show checkboxes to turn notes into checkable lists * View and create notes from homescreen and lockscreen widgets * Selectable color for notes * Safely sync notes to Google Drive and other devices * Notes can also be used from http://drive.google.com/keep"

"Now that the NEW Google Drive is rolling out to users, I decided to update my cheat sheet. I broke the drive window into four sections to make it easier to read. I also decided to put the keyboard shortcuts in a separate document so you can download that as well."

"CloudConvert is an excellent converter to use for converting almost anything you want.  We have tried several converting utilities in the past and this one stands out from the crowd. It is fast (even with large files), simple, easy to use, and most important of all, it is integrated with Google Drive and other cloud services such as Dropbox. 'It is possible to use Google Drive or Dropbox both as input or output destination for your converted files. This makes it possible to start a large video conversion, leave the app and just wait until the file appears in your Google Drive / Dropbox.'"

"For most people, however, I recommend Google Keep, especially for anyone who uses the many products Keep integrates with. These include Chrome, Calendar, Gmail, Photos, Drive, Docs, Google Now, Google Assistant and Google Home. The integration of Keep with these other apps is powerful stuff. "

"The Google Apps for Education suite includes a number of robust tools that can streamline administrative tasks. In addition to making your job as an administrator easier, using them allows you to model effective technology adoption with your staff. One of my favorite tools to tackle this type of tasks is Google Forms, one of tools within Google Drive. Here are five ways that Administrators can use Google Forms in their schools."

"Google has recently released some important updates to its Google Drive. I have already covered each of these updates in separate posts but for those of you who haven't seen them yet, the list below aggregates all of these updates in one single place."

"Okay, so we're a little late to this one, but while no one was looking, Google Drive for Education went both free and unlimited last month, much to the delight of schools and districts that make use of its splendor. The announcement from Google:"

"In this wonderful video Google engineers Liu and Merrified share some interesting tips and insights on how to effectively search your Gmail and  Drive.The purpose is to enable you to tap into some hidden gems that will allow you to search for what you need in Gmail or Drive quickly and accurately. All of the search tips Liu and Merrified talked about in this tutorial include search and Boolean operators. This document from Gmail Help features some of the most useful operators to use when conducting internal searches in your Gmail. You should definitely bookmark and keep it for reference."

"Here is a great Google Doc tip that helps me a lot with my studies in university. As a graduate student, most of my reading assignments and hand-outs come in the form of PDFs and some of these documents are only scanned versions of the original documents. Often times, these PDFs are low-quality as they are poorly scanned which makes reading them a real pain in the butt. Also, scanned PDFs do not allow you to do much on them: You can not annotate or edit text on them. However, there is a workaround to this using Google Docs OCR(Optical Character Recognition). Optical Character Recognition(OCR) lets you convert scanned PDFs or any image that include text in it into text documents using automated computer algorithms in Google Docs. Once converted, you can then edit and annotate the text as you like. Here is how to activate OCR on your Drive."