Group projects always have challenges, but managing one doesn’t have to be stressful. What you need is a platform that keeps all the work in one place, shows the latest drafts, and offers enough flexibility so that group members can work on their own time schedules. Google Drive incorporates all these features and makes organization, communication, and collaboration much less frustrating and time consuming.
Google Drive is designed for collaboration. The documents you create and share are designed to be worked on by multiple people. It’s easy to create a Google account. In fact, anyone who already has a Gmail address has access to Google Drive. And, you don’t need a Gmail address if you don’t want one. You can create an account with your UAMS or personal email address. Go to https://www.google.com/drive and click on Go to Google Drive.
The strength behind collaborating in Google Drive comes through the ability to create and share files. Create a folder for your project and share it with the group members. You can create new folders and files or upload files from your laptop into the drive. Share photos, documents, presentations, PDFs, designs, drawings, recordings, videos – almost anything you need for your project can be stored and shared in Google Drive.
Group Projects with Google Apps
The Google apps make Drive a great platform for group projects. Students can work together, on the same document, in real time, and save their work in Drive. Here’s a quick overview of four apps that make working on group projects, papers, and presentations easy and efficient.
Docs: Docs is Google’s word processing app. Think of it as a lite version of Microsoft Word. Use docs for brainstorming, outlining, drafting, and polishing any type of document.
Slides: Slides is like PowerPoint lite. Gather all your content and create your slideshow in Slides. Multiple authors can add to, change, or edit the slideshow as needed, and Slides will always display the most recent version. You can track changes too, and revert to earlier versions if necessary.
Sheets: Sheets is Google’s spreadsheet app, sort of an Excel lite. You can use it for anything from data collection to keeping a project journal.
Calendar: Google Calendar is a great way of putting your project on a timeline. Create a project calendar and then set all your deadlines, due dates, status checks, meetings, and class sessions so that everyone in your group stays on track.
Google makes group projects much less frustrating and time consuming. Use Google for your next project and have greater success.
You can find more information about some of the Google apps on Google Tools.