Google Drive

Go to drive.google.com  — or click the grid of dots (⠿) in the top-right corner of any Google page and choose Drive. Sign in with your college email and password if prompted.

You can also download an app to your phone in the App Store/Google Play store - very useful!

What is it for?

Google Drive is your online storage space. Any work you save here is stored in the cloud — meaning you can get to it from any device, anywhere, as long as you have internet access. No more "I left it on my home computer."

Finding your files

When you open Drive you'll see:

• My Drive — everything you've saved or created yourself.

• Shared with me — files and folders your tutor has sent you access to. Handouts, resources and assignment templates often appear here.

• Recent — the files you've opened lately, useful for picking up where you left off.

Use the search bar at the top if you can't find something — it searches file names and even text inside documents.

Creating and editing work

Click the + New button on the left to create a new document, spreadsheet or presentation — these are Google's versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Everything saves automatically as you type, so you won't lose work if your browser crashes or your laptop dies.

Uploading files

If you've done work on your own device, you can drag and drop files straight into Drive from your desktop or downloads folder, or use + New → File upload. Once it's uploaded it's backed up and accessible from anywhere.

Sharing work with your tutor

Right-click any file and choose Share. Type in your tutor's college email address, make sure it's set to Editor or Viewer (depending on what they need), and click Send. They'll get a link straight to your file — no emailing attachments back and forth.

Staying organised

Create folders to keep things tidy — one per subject works well. Right-click in an empty area of My Drive and choose New folder. Drag files in to sort them.