Google has a suite of tools and storage space for individuals, businesses and educators. The education suite, which may be available at your institution, includes storage that is GDPR compliant as well as the other tools optimised for educational purposes.  

The suite of tools corresponds to the main Office programmes, with the addition of forms, and you can upload Office documents onto Google Drive and open them to collaborate. However, not all features will display perfectly, so it is probably best just to work in the native formats.

Backup

Some of the benefits to using Google are similar to Microsoft if you use the available cloud storage: by connecting Drive to your desktop, you can work offline and automatically save your document in Drive whenever you're online again, helping to secure your work from loss if you have a local computer failure. You can access your documents from any connected device. 

Student work

Because of Google's ubiquity (for good or ill!) and the ease of signing up -- most of us have Google accounts these days -- there are relatively few technical barriers to getting your students on board as well. The suite of Google tools can allow students to quickly create work spaces for collaborative projects.  

Google docs

 

 

Last modified: Wednesday, 12 August 2020, 10:00 AM