How Google Drive Can Help Home-Education Parents

With home education on the rise in South Africa, how to store and organise resources and work is a key question for many learners and their parents. Embracing digital learning platforms and storage solutions is a great way to access, use, and save your materials – and with the availability of cloud storage also on the rise, it makes sense to employ this as a tool for home education.

Why cloud storage?

Parents will know the amount of documents that accumulate through home education: worksheets, essays, projects, books, and grade transcripts. While some resources need to be in physical form, there are plenty that can be created, accessed, and stored digitally – and it makes the organisation and sharing of the materials much easier too. Using cloud storage lends itself to the flexible nature of home education, allowing materials and resources to accompany you on trips outdoors or to libraries and museums. Cloud storage enables access, editing, and sharing of files just about anywhere; and provides a secure central place for documents to be stored. Many platforms allow collaboration in the service, making group work more intuitive and adding a new dimension to remote learning.

Choosing your cloud

Choosing a cloud storage system can seem like a bit of a minefield, with so many different providers now on offer. Many companies will offer a certain amount for free, but depending on how many materials you have to store, you might need to purchase more space. Read around and find the best solution for you: one of the first steps is to determine how much space you will need. Also consider where you already have online accounts – anyone with a Google account will already have access to Google Drive, its 15 GB of free storage, and online editing services with Google Docs. Make sure to check out the support for your service too, such as the availability of apps that will work on your and your child’s mobile devices.

Cloud storage is opening up and changing the face of education by making things more accessible and flexible, which makes it ideal for home-education learners. Utilising the cloud is also a great general life skill, encouraging secure backups of important information and a collaborative approach to working in different locations. Put these resources at your and your child’s fingertips and see how it makes a difference to their education experience.