Seventh grade students are now invited to bring their own device to school on which to access the internet. Each student has a Google account through the Los Alamitos School District. I suggest a small laptop that is comfortable for writing! We do much writing in 7th grade!

I teach much of my writing curriculum using the Google Drive. Writing assignments are posted on the Google Classroom app which students should download onto their devices. They can also download the app onto their home computers, tablets, or smartphones. When students go the the Classroom app and "add" the assignment, their documents are shared with me and we can write collaboratively on the Google Drive. Students can also share documents and write collaboratively with each other!

The benefits are many: I can see their work and guide them in their writing during the writing process; there is no need to print as many rough drafts as we used to (saving in ink); no need for flash drives that often get misplaced; parents can look at the Google Drive and check on their student's progress! I can also look at the document history see when edits were made.

Students can log on to the Google Drive simply by logging on to their LosAl account and selecting the "Drive" icon from the access panel. Note! I recommend that when students are working on school assignments they use their school Drive and not their personal Drive. I have often found that students accidentally write on a personal Drive and then cannot access it in the classroom.

Students can also find the icon for Google Classroom in their LosAl account access panel.

Here's the code to join my English class on Google Classroom:

Core 2: d5n84ds

Core 3: gevc8mw