​Meeting appointments in Google is a service that allows you to add open appointments and set how long each appointment should last. Everyone who gets the link to the booking page can choose a time. Once the appointment is selected, it automatically shows up in the calendars of everybody who will attend the meeting. Your calendar, your colleague's calendar (if you will host it together) and the student's calendar. Easy as pie!

​When I became a computer technician in 1997 everybody was talking about different certificates. The two major ones were MCP and MCSE that was provided by Microsoft. They served as a warranty that you knew your stuff in a specific area, and they can be compared with authorizations that are common in the car industry. It is now possible to become a certified teacher at Microsoft and Google, and I recently received my Google certificate.

​During my studies, I found a private group on Facebook, where everyone studied for the certification exams at different levels, and the atmosphere in the group was really lovely. You'll find the group here:
www.facebook.com/groups/googleteachers
  
Google and Microsoft have certificates at several different levels. There are also "badges" and certifications you may be awarded in your profession, and these are awards for greatness rather than traditional certificates. Just get started, and in no tie at all, you may have the entire wall behind your desk covered with lots of neat certificates.

That's cool!


The study guide for Google Certified Educators can be found here:
https://teachercenter.withgoogle.com/certification_level1

The study guide for Microsoft Certified Educator can be found here:
https://education.microsoft.com/sv-se

​Let's start with the word "Drive". You're first thought might be that "drive" is a verb, but among nerds, it has been used as a noun for many years. It all started a long time ago when computers' screens were still black and just had a small flashing line (a prompt) where you had to type commands to get the computer to do what you wanted. The person who administered the computer needed to know quite a few different commands to make anything happened inside the computer. One of these commands was just "drive" used as a verb. This command woke up different attached devices so that the computer could display their content. The devices could be a hard drive, a specific part of the hard drive or a diskette you had brought from home.
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Pretty soon this word "drive" started to be used as a noun, and the units themselves began to be called "drives" among technicians. You could hear questions like "which drive is the file on?". All those letters you see on the computer like C:, D: etc. are different "drives". Therefore, a drive can be several various things, but they have in common that they can store data, just like a warehouse or a barn.

These days, the drives are no longer limited to stay on the computers, instead, they have flown up to become clouds. There are several advantages since you can always reach your cloud from different devices like your phone or tablet. Another "pro" is that the cloud providers are excellent at backing up everything and your data is safe as a bird in its nest.

​​What about Google? Google is one of many cloud providers that you can use for free or use the expanded payment service. Microsoft has a cloud as well (of course) they call OneDrive. You can also find clouds from smaller companies and which one you prefer is a matter of taste. You can think of all these different clouds as real clouds in the sky that float by — the Google-cloud with all its various colours and the Microsoft-cloud in blue shades.

A common mistake is to think that Google Drive is primarily a place where you share documents and where others can see your files. This is wrong! Google Drive is primarily your warehouse, and this is very important. You decide how folders and files should be organized and what settings you want for notifications and the like. I sometimes get the question from colleagues if I can not stop sending an email every time I share a document with them, but of course, I can not. Everyone who uses Google Drive can decide if they want notifications when they receive a file or not.
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The three main parts of Google Drive are “My device”, “Shared devices” and “Shared with me”, but it is only in the folder “shared devices” that the environment is shared by everyone. In this part of your Google Drive, folders are shared, and everything you do in this section will affect how others see it. If you move a folder, it will be moved for everyone when they visit this device (this barn!). This does not apply in the “shared with me” section where individual files are located. In this part, you may have the files organized one way while your colleague prefers another. You may have a folder called “from Jenny”, and the college has one called “from Maria”. You can definitely move the files from “Shared with me” to “My Device” to have everything in one place. But now I’m getting into the usage of Google Drive, and I’ll write more about that in a future post.

​I hope you feel that you’ve got a better idea of ​​what Google Drive is all about and that you might even think it seems pretty fun!

​When I look at teacher-things on Pinterest, sometimes different templates show up that different teachers have made. They are often stylish and practical, but unfortunately, they are never free. Since I don't usually pay personally for materials that I give to my students, I use Pinterest for "window-shopping" and inspiration. 

Now I have created three different templates that I use in language classes ​​and I would like to share them. I made them in Google Docs and you can easily copy them to your own Google Drive and use them as you like. The first template is for practising irregular verbs. Just change the words that are already filled in so that the student can practice the words that you chose. The second template is a word gap and it works well in any subject where you want the student to practice words and concepts. The third template is to practice to write a letter to a friend in any language.

All templates can be filled in directly on screen so they can easily be e-mailed to students or shared in the Google Classroom. The students can practice and you correct them together in the classroom. If you think the header and footer are a little too childish, just click them and press "delete" and you will get templates that are a little more adult! 

To get the templates you just click the button below to access my Google Drive folder. You can select the documents and chose "copy" to have copies of your own.