Go to classroom.google.com and/or download the Google Classroom app on your smart devices (students may want to download Google Docs, Google Slides, Google Sheets, and Google Drive in addition to any other apps you might want)

Click on the plus sign (+) at the top right corner

Click Join a Class

Enter in the class code (see your class page or ask your teacher for the code)

Parent/Guardian e-mails can be added to their student's account. Parents should not join a class as a student (unless parents want some homework to do too!). Only students should join a Classroom so they can receive their assignments and upload work.

Google Drive is great for doing a multitude of tasks with. You're likely familiar with many of the features, but staying organized can be difficult if you don't use it often. Here are some of my tips:

• Your Google Drive is really like your hub. It holds everything you do on almost all of the other Google products. Even your Google Classroom assignments will pop up with their own folder in Drive. What's also great is you can access your Google Drive offline. You just can't share anything, and any edits you make won't be viewable to anyone else until you get connected to the internet (see the above sections about this). But it's great because you can still pull up all of your information.

• If you're offline, you can't pull up PDF documents. This is important as most of our work is going to be done with PDFs. You'll want to make sure you download these to the desktop

• Make a separate folder for each unit within each class. When you are downloading them, put the correct documents in the correct folders. This should be done in Drive as well as on your desktop.

• If you're ever asked to type a summary, a paper, or want to type your notes, you can just add a new Google Doc. You can also make simple posters with Doc. You can download these as PDFs or Microsoft Word documents.

• If you want to make a powerpoint, use Google Slides. Slides can be used for so many things. I loved using Slides (and still do sometimes) as a study tool. When I was in school, I would put all of my information (especially ID) and pictures and I would make a slideshow of the information I learned. The creation of the study tool was a big part of helping me remember. Once I made the study tool, I didn't really have to actually study that much!

• Slides can also be used to make posters. There are other websites like canva.com that I would recommend for this, but it might be easier to use Slides and much easier sharing. You can fix the measurements of the slide so that when you print it out, it will look like a poster. You can also download as a PDF.

• What's great about these Google products is their ability to share. You can have multiple people working on a Doc or Slides at the same time and can use comment features to help you. There are also features for viewers to Suggest so basically they don't accidentally erase your progress, but you can review their suggestions and accept them or remove them.

• Google Sheets might be useful to you, though we probably won't use it as much in my classes. BUT, it would be a great way for you to keep track of your assignments by making a column for due dates, what to turn in, where to turn it in, etc.

• Gmail is something students should be checking as often as possible. This is honestly a real-world experience. Many careers now rely on e-mail for professional communication. Students should try to check their Gmail at least once a day, (I check mine multiple times a day, even if I know I can't respond right away!), though of course internet availability should be considered.

• Google Keep is a neat little tool that allows users to basically make little sticky notes. I have started using it to make a list of purchases for the classroom I need to make.

• Google Calendar is also a must use tool for students. You might have a planner and if that works for you, then perfect! I do prefer to write in a paper calendar, myself. But the cool thing about Google Calendar again is the sharing aspect. You can share invites to your friends or see upcoming reminders for tests when allowing Google Calendar to show up.

• In your Google Drive, there is also a Shared with Me and a Shared Drive. These are two different things. A Shared Drive is something that multiple people have access to and can contribute to as a whole. You automatically "own" or have access to the files in the Shared Drive. Files in the Shared with Me folder are just that--shared with you. Like an invitation to a birthday party, you can view it (or you may be given access to edit it), but you'll still need to click on the "Save to My Drive" icon. Otherwise you do not "own" it. Luckily, you'll be able to go back into your Shared with Me folder anytime to retrieve it. (Not sure about offline work though). However, if you want a copy of it saved onto your Google Drive, you'll need to move it.

• In general, try to make sure you are consistent with your Drive. Name everything if it doesn't have a name. Trying to search for the start of a research paper when there are twenty different documents titled "Untitled Document" is going be really challenging.

• Just like assignments in class, make sure you put your name and date on the document somewhere if possible!!

• Another great function is the search feature. If you forgot to title your document or you can't remember what you called it (I'm guilty of this all the time) OR you can't remember what folder you put it in (I'm also very guilty of this), you can type in what you think it's called or even some key words that are in the document itself and Drive will show you everything that you've ever typed into Drive with those words in it. It can make finding lost documents easy!