Source: Google Blog
Google Drive is an online storage space provided by Google. It allows you to store Google Documents (spreadsheets, presentations, word processing documents, etc.) as well as other files (such as videos, music files, etc). People who remember the early days are often confused about Google Drive. You can think of it as an online hard drive with added functionality of being able to create files.
I use Google Drive daily. A quick search reveals many tutorials of how to use Google Drive. Here are some of the ways that I use it:
- give students feedback on work that they have shared with me in Google Drive
- create itineraries for trips with friends and have them add to it/comment
- save large files that cannot be sent by e-mail and share them with the recipient
- share a folder or zip file of images with friends that I traveled with
- store files that I want to access/modify on the go (iPad, iPhone, other computer)
- save a backup of an important file (e.g. essays while completing coursework)
- create surveys and share them with others
- create graphs to analyze surveys
- present a presentation in full screen mode right in Google Drive
Google has added better integration of tools so that it’s easier to add a Google document into an e-mail, to add images to forms, and to access storage. Currently, users have 10 GB for Gmail and 5 GB for Drive and Google+ Photos. Google will be integrating storage so that users will have 15 GB distributed amongst Google products. This is exciting for me because as I keep most of my files in Drive, I have a greater need for storage space there rather than in Gmail.