I have been introducing our grade two students to Google Drive every winter for a few years now and I've learned a few things that others might find helpful.
I create all of my student's their very own Passport for Technology. In this Passport inside the front cover I put their Google Drive Username and Password. I have worked with the rest of the Technology Team to figure out the simplest yet unique Usernames for our students, we have settled upon first initial last name year of graduation. For example sfortino25@tchs.org. Next we needed to come up with a universal password for the students that they could learn and commit to memory in second grade. We use several variations of the year of graduation and word class, one letter is always capitalized per Google's requirements. After the passports are set up and the log-ins and passwords are created we spot test them to ensure that they are all working properly. Despite doing this we almost always run into some issue the first day of use.
The students are always excited to start Google Drive so I tend to let them know the week before that we will start learning about Google Drive and learning to log into ours.
Day One:
I model for the students what logging in looks like. with my account and we discuss how my account might be different from theirs. Someone almost always says that mine will have more stuff in it then theirs because I'm a teacher. Next, I introduce their usernames to them and their passwords. I show them one of the passports and we talk about why I give them all the same password. I often have to share the answer with them that it makes it easier for me to help them when they have difficulty logging in. Finally, they get to navigate to Google Drive on their computer and try logging in. Once everyone is logged in I teach them how to log out. They are often dismayed by this direction. Next I tell them to log in and out 10 times and that on the 10 log in stay logged in. If time permits I will introduce creating folders and we will make their Grade One Folder.
Day Two:
The next time I see the students is typically a week later, so we review the log in process and I send them to their computers and tell them I want them to log in and out as many times as they can in 7 minutes. I don't set a timer I just watch the clock and check to make sure everyone is able to log in independently at least 3 times. Next we learn how to create folders. They make one for their grade level and another for Special Subjects. Inside the Specials Folder we create folders for the different subjects they will have over the next several years at our school.
Day Three and Four:
Again a week has passed sometimes more since I last saw these kids. We again start with a few minutes of logging in and out. By this time some are starting to memorize their logins! Next we learn to share our folders with the necessary teachers. We also learn to color the folders to potentially aid in organization. I also introduce the shared with me folder today and in it they will see a shared doc from me that looks like this:
I typically divide the class in advance into several docs as having all 18 working the same one is just too much at this point. I usually have 3 kids from each section in a given doc. They have to answer the question for each column in the row where their name appears. (We typically run out of time at this point.) Next I teach them how to change the Font style, size and color as well as how to center. These are all skills that teachers in grade 3 and up want the kids to know. Once they have finished the doc looks like this:
Day Five:
We start by navigating to the Technology Folder. We learn to create a new doc. In this doc I have the students write about 3 sentences about themselves and ask a question. They then have to share the doc with preassigned classmate. I expect them to navigate to shared with me (with some support) and open the doc and answer the question that was asked of them. I encourage them to ask open ended question and not yes/no ones.
Day Six:
Adding images. We start by navigating to the Technology Folder and creating a new doc. I then walk them through how to add a photo and they write a sentence about why they picked this photos. I instruct them to look for one of the following: Dogs, Cats or Fish. Next the add 2-3 more images of animals. Then I have them write their own instructions for how to add images as this is a skill they will use in their classrooms in a few weeks.
