logging in to google

At Bideford College, we use various parts of Google Workspace (previously known as G Suite). This includes Classroom, Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides and more.

Signing in on the web

  1. Go to the website https://drive.google.com and click the button to sign in with “personal” account on the left. Don’t actually use a personal account should you have one.

  2. You can find a shortcut on the intranet and the Bideford college website.

  3. Sign in using your Bidefordcollege.org account, NOT your personal google account.

  4. From a school computer, your account will be signed in with your Microsoft account automatically. If you are accessing your work account from home, you will be redirected to a Microsoft sign in page. You will need to enter your Bideford college email address and the password that you use to sign into the computers on site.

  5. Once signed in you should see these options in the left panel:

Checking the account you are signed in to

Here is how you determine which account is currently sign in, as sometimes Google can switch the account you are logged in as, if you use multiple accounts:

Top right of the page, you should see the Bideford college logo and your initial in the circle. Mouse over the button or click to check it is your email address you are signed in with. If you click the button you will be able to change what account you are signed in with.

My Drive

My drive is where you can store and organise your private documents that only you will have access to.

To create folders and upload files from your pc, click the ‘New’ button, located top left.

Shared With Me

Any files in this section have been shared with you from someone else’s My Drive.

If you want a specific person to have access to a document, temporarily, that is not suitable to placed into a department shared drive, you can share from My Drive.

How to Share

Right Clicking a file in My Drive will let you click Share. Start typing the email address of who you would like to share with and then select the correction permissions for the recipient.

· Viewer – only able to view the document and make a copy for themselves which will be editable, but your original will be untouched.

· Commenter – will only be able to leave comments on the document, leaving only annotations and no changes.

· Editor – full access to the document to make changes as they wish.

If you share a file with Commenter or Editor permissions it is recommended that any collaboration work is done using Google Docs, as the Microsoft Office tools will not update quickly enough and you may end up with lots of versions of a file to condense later.

The file that you’ve shared should now appear in the recipients “Shared with me” section.