Google Drive and Google Docs: Features, Affordances, Constraints and Usage

 Overview

Google Drive and Docs are the components of an integrated cloud storage and service that provides a single place to store, access, create, edit, and share documents, files, and folders of all types. Google Drive and Google Docs are free applications in the cloud-based Google Apps Suite highly suitable for advancing the practices of modern constructivist pedagogy/andragogy. The suite is powered by decent technology recently developed and considerably more advanced than it was possible a few years ago, when it was known as “Google Docs”. Google Docs was introduced in February 2007, and after years of improvements became Google Drive in April, 2012. Lately, its use in education is rapidly becoming increasingly widespread, though the amount of in-depth academic research on the effectiveness and implications of Google Drive/Docs is still limited in scope. As the loyal user of Google Drive/Docs since its launch, and the author of this mobile learning project striving of being as current as possible, I carefully curated a number of best educational articles available, either from reputable sources on the Internet, or my recent teaching practices and learning experiences, significantly empowered with the best practices and feedback from professional community and thousands of students from my postsecondary institution where we use Gmail as an educational email service as part of Google Apps for Education, including 30GB of merged Google Drive/Docs/Gmail/Picasa Web Albums cloud storage. To emphasize the focus of this mobile learning project on ease of use, so instead of basic textual descriptions and explanations, the balanced compilation of text, images and videos is presented for better immersion and understanding of this decent cloud storage/service technology.

 Google Drive/Docs Features

• General Features

The predecessor to Google Drive was Google Docs, which provided users with the ability to share and collaborate on documents together. The document types were limited to the basics: word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, drawings and forms creation. Compared to Dropbox, cloud storage pioneer, Google took it further and developed Google Documents to have more free storage capacity than Dropbox (now 15 GB, compared with Dropbox’s 3 GB), similar synchronization ability (with a Mac/PC sync client), and ability to store and share more than 30 different file types, including multimedia (.jpg, .mpg, .avi, .gif, etc.), compressed (.zip, .rar, .arj, .7z, etc.) and executable files (.exe extensions). Google changed the name of Google Documents to Google Drive and very cleverly augmented and retained the file sharing and collaboration affordances that Dropbox lacks, generating huge interest of educators who recognized those constructivism supporting affordances as much needed in education field.

Google Drive has Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and it also brings Google’s search power to the leading position. Google Drive also has image recognition, so if you search for “Niagara Falls,” it will find all photos from your Niagara trip, even if you never titled them.
Google launched a campaign and advertisements educating users to better understand the main advantages of Google Drive. The “Exploring Google Drive” video below is a good example.

Google Docs formatting is comfortable for anyone who has used a basic word processor, and it remains consistent wherever you view it. Collaboration and commenting on Google Docs is now simple to manage, with just adding and subtracting of accounts. The main competitor of Google drive is Microsoft SkyDrive, (7GB free), empowered with the Office web Apps.

Google’s image recognition search is awesome. That is pretty fancy stuff, and it’s only possible thanks to the Internet-scale image search data like Google does.

Google Drive is excellent for storage, and it works like any disk, so we could upload entire movie library if we have enough space. Basically, we can use Google Drive as a Dropbox-like service with similar syncing clients.

Using Google Drive from the security perspective is a great way to store your files safely in secure data centers, where your files won’t go missing. Even if your computer, phone or tablet break, the files you store in Google Drive are safe.

• Web features

Google Drive Web interface in standard browsers loads much faster, than previous Google Docs interface, and is cleaner, and better organized, thanks to the fact is that Google Drive has also had years of refinement in the web browsers as Google Docs, resulting in providing users with stability and ease of creation and managing of the Drive content directly on the Web.

• Desktop features

Its desktop interface either on Mac or PC is beautiful and highly functional. The Google Drive folder and synchronisation client work flawlessly to precisely and timely synchronize your files. I have been using Google Drive Windows client since the launch in 2012, and it was able to fully sync all files for the 99% of time.

• Mobile features

With 15GB of free storage, integration with other Google services, and powerful text and image recognition when searching for files, Google Drive is now a formidable challenger to Evernote on iOS. Google Drive mobile app for iOS is faster, cleaner, and better organized, thanks to the fact is that Google Drive has also had years of refinement in Safari as Google Docs. Google released first Google Drive mobile app version 1.1 of for iOS in Septemeber of 2012. Now, in November of 2013, the iOS and Android users can use the improved versions of the apps to edit Google Docs natively on their devices.

The newest version 2.1.0 of the iOS app updated on Nov 7, 2013, has the Multiple Account Support, so you can now switch between personal, work, or any other Google account, Single Sign In: Sign in once to Google Drive and you’ll automatically be signed in to apps like YouTube, Google Maps, Chrome, and G+, Print your files now with Google Cloud Print or AirPrint and iOS 7 Support.

 Google Drive/Docs Affordances

• Affordances are perceived emergent properties and realized possibilities of the object.  Affordance is not a feature of subject or object; rather it refers to both (Gibson, 1979, p. 127 and 129). They express possible functions in certain situations. Affordances are not good or bad, what they are depends on the subject’s perception and its optimal/non-optimal use of the possible function.
• Initially, basic affordances enable easy creation, storage, sharing and collaboration of different file types (documents, presentations, spreadsheets, forms, drawings, etc.) Decent (15 GB) of Cloud storage size allows sharing, upload/download, ease of access to files and docs (and its revisions) stored for future use.
• Google Drive/Docs social affordances are quite decent. Doing group collaborative work with the help of Google Docs empowered with Google+ Hangout, is a good choice that results in extraordinary social experience, by enabling text, spreadsheet, presentation, form and drawing modification and fruitful collaboration together synchronously in real time. Using only Google Docs we can modify text together and left some notes on margin for others to find, but speaking and chatting would not have been possible. Consequently, the social features of Google docs are decent, but if empowered with Google+ tools, social affordances are extraordinary.
• Google Drive/Docs cognitive affordances are not immediately obvious. The concept of cognitive affordance is understood as series of coherent sessions of creative and analytical activities that consider involvement of inductive/deductive reasoning, thinking, analysis and other mental processes. Working in Google Drive/Docs, includes possibilities of writing, interaction with others, reworking text, compiling presentations, drawing pictures and forms, processing information, etc., reflecting on your own thoughts and other related activities. The creative possibilities are almost inexhaustible.

 

• Google Drive/Docs emotional/motivational affordances are synergistically linked to those other two, considering that using that kind of advanced cloud web storage empowered with powerful web apps service, creates rich document production system with so many decent social and cognitive affordances, quite inspiring and motivating to users.

Synchronous and Asynchronous Collaboration
The value of synchronous and asynchronous collaboration is confirmed by numerous studies as essential and highly rewarding for education and business, so people can learn and accomplish much more when they “put their brains together”. Here is the Google video about Sharing and Collaboration.

The video above provides a closer examination of the Google Drive sharing and collaboration process. It demonstrates a number of significant affordances, including ease-of-use, various methods for performing specific tasks, accessibility on a number of platforms, open communication through various functions such as chatting and commenting (with very comprehensive comment notification settings), and the capability for educators to carefully review and monitor a document’s revision history as an excellent way to assess if students are equitably contributing to their group projects.
Other Collaborative Interactivities
Since its introduction in April, 2012, Google Drive has inspired numerous educators to suggest some very creative ways of taking advantage of its many affordances.

• As an example, George Williams, an associate professor of English at the University of South Carolina Upstate, wrote a comprehensive tutorial called, “Host a Website on Google Drive,” posted on The Chronicle of Higher Education on February 25, 2013.
• Another excellent use for Google Drive involves its seamless integration with learning management systems, like the Canvas LMS by Instructure.
• Google Drive is now being utilized for collaborative multimedia projects, where learners and instructors can securely exchange video or audio files by use of shared folders.
• Also, for bloggers or website developers who want to embed content in one of their own pages or posts, Google provides the necessary code. The University of Alaska Fairbanks gives complete instructions for this on their website in a pdf file called “Teaching Tips.”
• Another Google Drive affordance implemented in 2012, is available in extremely versatile mobile apps for iOS and Android mobile platforms that allow users to using wireless connections automatically create upload and download documents and multimedia content. For those on the go, who have decent mobile data plans, a considerable amount of information processing is possible, even while traveling, which is a huge benefit for busy students and teachers who commute regularly.

 

 Constraints

 

Beside a number of decent affordances, here are some constraints that limit the access and use of Google Drive/Docs on certain computing platforms and mobile browsers.

• More limited formatting options compared to Microsoft Office Web apps suite
• Limited browser compatibility. So far, google Drive/Docs support Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari (on Mac OS only)
• Limited Mac OSX compatibility (supports only OSX Snow Leopard (10.6) and up)
• No official Google Drive support for Windows Phone (some third-party support – FourFly)
• Google Drive Mobile Apps are less view friendly on various tablets (iPad, Galaxy, etc.)?
• No support for third-party archiving applications to grab and store articles and pages from the Web.
• Google Drive is not currently available for the Linux operating system. Linux users can still access Google Drive on the web – drive.google.com, or through the Google Drive mobile app.
• Google Drive provides a decent service for free; you pay only if you want more storage space. But Google uses our data to better optimize ads and delivers to us across the Web, so Google may compromise on the features that don’t directly support the AdSense and AdWords business.
• Furthermore, Google captures our IP address, and uses our accounts for any external purposes.
• There is no built-in text and file/folder encryption, so we may not feel safe storing sensitive data.
• If we want complete privacy, it’s better not to put our information on the Web at all.

 

 Support and Use of Google Drive/Docs

Your Google Drive is in the cloud, but you can also install the desktop and mobile application to access your files from your computer, smartphone, tablet, or other Android or iOS mobile device, in addition to the online web interface at http://drive.google.com. Google Drive’s built-in sync capability ensures that your files, folders, and Google documents are the same on all your devices.

• Google Drive on the Web browsers

So far, Google Drive/Docs support Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer and Safari (on Mac OS only)

Enter the Google Drive web address http://drive.google.com, to access the web interface.

• Google Drive desktop clients

So far, Google Drive/Docs support Windows OS (XP, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8), and Mac OSX Snow Leopard (10.6), Lion (10.7), Mountain Lion (10.8) (Mavericks (10.9). You can install Google Drive client on your desktop Mac or PC, as soon as you have access to Google Drive on the web by clicking on Download and install the Google Drive for your Mac/PC application. This lets you sync files from your hard drive to Google Drive on the web, giving you access to your files on any device, at any time.

Google Drive Windows Desktop Client Step-by-step installation instructions:

1. Go to http://drive.google.com.
2. Click the Download Google Drive for your PC button.
3. Open googledrivesync.exe to automatically install and start Google Drive on your PC. (You may receive a warning that Google Drive is an application downloaded from the Internet. Click the Open button.)
4. Enter your Google Account username and password in the window that opens. This will be the account associated with Google Drive for your PC.
5. Complete the installation package instructions.
6. Launch Google Drive for your PC from the Start menu. Drag files and folders into your Google Drive folder to begin syncing items to My Drive (part of Google Drive on the web).

Google Drive Mac Desktop Client Step-by-step installation instructions:

1. Go to http://drive.google.com.
2. Click the Download Google Drive for your Mac button.
3. Open installgoogledrive.dmg.
4. Open the installation file and drag the Google Drive icon to your Applications folder.
5. Open Google Drive from your Applications folder. (You may receive a warning that Google Drive is an application downloaded from the Internet. Click the Open button.)
6. Enter your Google Account username and password in the window that opens. This will be the account associated with Google Drive for your Mac.
7. Complete the installation package instructions.
8. Launch Google Drive for your Mac from the toolbar. Drag files and folders into your Google Drive folder to begin syncing items to My Drive (part of Google Drive on the web).

Seting up Google Drive for offline access:

Follow these steps to enable offline access on your computer. Keep in mind that offline access is available only when you’re using Chrome or a Chrome OS device. If you use Chrome OS, there’s no need to complete these steps, as offline access is already set up for you.

1. From drive.google.com in your Chrome browser, click More on the left-hand side of the screen.
2. Select Offline.
3. Setting up offline access is a two-step process. First, click the blue button that says Get the app. If you already have the app installed, you won’t need to complete this step.
4. You’ll be taken to the Chrome web store. Click Add to Chrome in the upper-right corner of the browser window.
5. Once the app is installed, you’ll be taken to a Chrome page with the Google Drive app icon. To return to Drive, click the Google Drive icon.
6. On the right side of the dialog on the Offline Docs page, click the blue button that says Enable Offline. At this point, it also works to click on the gear icon in the top-right corner of your main Drive view and select Enable Offline to set up offline access.

Disabling Google Drive offline access:

If you no longer want to access your Drive offline, click the gear icon in the upper-right corner of your browser window and select Disable Offline.

• Google Drive Mobile Apps (iOS and Android)

Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings are viewable

• on the mobile browsers of most phones that support HTML.

Google Drive/Docs fully support editing on the following mobile platforms:

• Android devices version 2.1 and above
• iPhone and iPad devices with iOS 3.0 and up
• Mobile browsers on earlier Android platforms such as Eclair may work, but these aren’t fully supported for Google Docs
• Supported languages: Google support mobile editing for the following Google Docs languages: Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Simplified), Chinese (Traditional), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, English (UK), Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Kannada, Korean, Latvian, Lituanian, Malayalam, Marathi, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Portuguese (Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, and Vietnamese.
• Your mobile browser will reflect the language settings that you’ve set in your Google Docs settings on your desktop computer (not from your mobile device).

Installing Google Drive App for Android:

If you want to access Google Docs and Google Drive from your Android device, download the Drive app in Google Play. If you haven’t yet tried Drive on your desktop computer, you can get access through the Drive app on your Android device.

1. Tap the Google Play icon on your screen.
2. Find and install the application called Google Drive.
3. On your phone or tablet home screen, click the Drive app icon.

Updating the Google Docs app to Google Drive will remove existing Docs shortcuts from your home screen. After your update is complete, you can create shortcuts again.

Supported versions

To download and install the Google Drive app for Android, make sure your Android device version is supported:

• For phones, you need Android version 2.1 or higher.
• For tablets, you need Android version 3.0 or higher.
• To check your version, go to Settings and select About phone or About tablet. Your version number is listed under “Android version.”

Adding a Google Drive widget to your home screen:

You can add a widget to your device’s home screen to access the Drive app more quickly on the go. The widget also allows you to go directly to your Starred files, Create a document with one click, or take pictures with your camera and store them in Drive immediately.

• For Android 4.0 and above: Tap the All Apps icon and select Widgets at the top of your screen. Swipe left or right to move between screens and find the Drive widget. Long-press to pick it up and drag it to the desired spot on your device Home screen.
• For earlier Android versions: Long-press an empty spot on your Home screen, and tap Widgets in the pop-up menu. Swipe left or right to find the Drive widget, tap it with your finger, and click Select.

Installing Google Drive App for iOS devices:

Before you start using Google Drive on iPod, iPhone and iPad devices, download the app and request access to Google Drive:

1. Go to the App Store on your iPod, iPhone or iPad.
2. Search the App Store for “Google Drive.”
3. Find the search result with the Drive icon .
4. Select and install the app.
5. Open the app and sign into Google Drive

• Google Drive add-on apps
• The Chrome Web Store now has apps that we can run right on our desktop! There are many useful apps from various categories that run from the Google Drive.
• Google Drive Offline
• If you use Google Chrome Browser, you can turn on Drive offline to create, edit, and comment on Docs, Slides, and Drawings and view Sheets when there’s no network connection.
• Google Drive TIPS
• Below are the most common action shortcuts and tips for handling Google Drive and Google Docs.

Tips and best practices

• Here’s a list of helpful keyboard shortcuts to navigate Google Drive:
• To navigate your list of files and folders, press the Down and Up arrows.
• To open a selected item, press O or Enter.
• To move to the Search box, press Forward slash.
• To open the Google Drive keyboard shortcuts overlay, press Shift + Forward slash. To close the overlay, press Escape.
• Here are shortcuts to go to different locations in Google Drive:
• To go to a file and folder list, press G then L.
• To go to the navigation panel, press G then N. Press the Down or Up arrow to navigate to different views.
• To go to My Drive, press G then F. Press the Down or Up arrow to move to different folders. If a folder has folders nested within, use the Right arrow to navigate through those subfolders.
• To go to the details pane, press D.

 

 Conclusion  

Google Drive/Docs Summary

 What is Google Drive?

Google Drive is your personal stash of files and folders that follows you wherever you go – it lets you keep everything and share anything. With Google Drive, you can access files, folders, and Google documents (such as Docs, Sheets, and Slides) from a web browser or any device where you’ve installed your Google Drive.

 What can be done with Google Drive?

As free and decent cloud storage and service, Google Drive enables you to create, share and keep all your stuff in one place. With Google Drive, you can now access your files, even the big ones, from wherever you are. Share them with whomever you want, and edit them together in real time.

 Create, Share and collaborate

Google Docs is built right into Google Drive, so you can work together in real time on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and other documents. You can share your stuff with others, add and reply to comments and even make edits on the go.

Store everything safely and access it anywhere

You can access your stuff from anywhere—in your home, at the office, while running errands and from all your devices. Install Drive on your Mac or PC, download the mobile app to your phone or tablet, or visit anytime at http://drive.google.com.

 

 Search everything

Search by keyword and filter by file type, owner and more. Google Drive can even recognize content in your scanned documents and images.

 

 How much cloud storage?

You get started with 15 GB free cloud storage space. Learn more at http://drive.google.com.

Conclusion:

 

Google Drive – Pros

Google Drive is best in class for collaborative office suites. It includes local file-syncing and offline access to documents, empowered with built-in OCR technology. Generous 15GB of free cloud storage space is fairly enough for our basic cloud storage needs, if we use Google file formats for most docs.

 

Google Drive – Cons

Some users may feel uneasy about privacy. The toughest criticism of Google Drive is over privacy and IP ownership. Although, it’s quite easy to manage the privacy settings of our profiles, if we’re not careful during the utilization of new collaboration features, it could potentially expose our image/face to unknown people. All videos and image files that are stored via Google Drive must be downloaded each time they’re accessed, which may be time consuming, and count against our bandwidth cap.

IMHO, in-text documents and file/folder encryption should be implemented on Google Drive. As a potential solution to encryption issues, some free services can make Gmail, Google Drive, and Google search more private, such as the free BoxCryptor program that adds an encrypted folder to Google Drive.

 

Google Drive – Bottom Line

 

Google Drive, as part office suite and part cloud storage and file-syncing service, decently retains and constantly improves all the best features and core functionality of its predecessor, Google Docs, while quite decently supports document creation, sharing and collaboration, including mobile platforms. All in all, Google Drive is a decent package that offers lots of productivity features for free.

The privacy of our profiles should be managed responsibly, to avoid potential privacy issues.

 

 

 References

Greeno, James G. Gibson’s affordances. Psychological Review, Vol 101(2), Apr 1994, 336-342. DOI: 10.1037/0033-295X.101.2.336

Wells, Andrew J. (2002) Gibson’s affordances and Turing’s theory of computation. Ecological psychology, 14 (3). pp. 140-180. ISSN 1040-7413 http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/2606/

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/google-drive/apdfllckaahabafndbhieahigkjlhalf?hl=en

https://support.google.com/a/topic/2490075?hl=en&ref_topic=9197

https://support.google.com/a/answer/2490104?hl=en&ref_topic=2498056

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google_Docs

http://chronicle.com/blogs/profhacker/host-a-website-on-google-drive/46737 http://www.google.com/policies/privacy/

http://elearning.uaf.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/TT-GoogleDriveVideos.pdf

http://learn.googleapps.com/drive

 

© mzivko2013