If you’ve been busy with the start of the school year, you may have missed Team Drives appearing in your Google Drive. Now, that things have settled down, it seems like a good time to stop and take a look at this new option in Google Drive.

First, what is a Team Drive?

Essentially, it’s a place to share and collaborate with a specific group.

Isn’t that Google Drive already?

Yes, but Team Drive has membership… and that has its privileges… or advantages!

When you create a Team Drive, you add members and give members specific permissions for everything that is put into that Team Drive. Everyone can have full access since there isn’t a single owner which, as some us have encountered, gets a bit sticky if someone leaves a job position and is the keeper of specific folders and Docs, etc.

That’s a pro.

However, a con is that you can’t share a public view only link to items within the Team Drive.

I found this great resource being compiled by Steve Wick (@WickedEdTech) and Melissa Wilson (@MrsWilsonNV) that breaks down Team Drive options.

Team Drive seems like a great collaborative space, but I think other elements are necessary for collaboration… such as a community feel and interface.

I have this idea of combining Google+, Google Classroom and Team Drive to round everything out… that’s coming up in my next post. Stay tuned.