Google Productivity 

You might have noticed that more and more of our apps are being put in the cloud so we can access them from any device that has an internet connection. There are more people using web based email such as Gmail instead of a desktop client such as Microsoft Outlook. When it comes to office apps such as word processors, spreadsheets and presentation software, we can use all of these online as well.

Google has been in the internet business for more years than most of us can remember. Their search engine and Chrome web browser dominate the market when it comes to surfing the internet. Plus, they have so many online apps, it’s enough to make your head spin!

You might be familiar with the more popular Google apps such as Docs, Sheets, Gmail, Photos and YouTube but you may or may not have heard of Google Forms. If you have the need to create online forms or even quizzes, then you can easily do so using this free web based app. After creating a form or quiz, you can then share it with others and monitor the answers you get in real time. If you would like other people to help design your forms, you can do that as well.

Google Forms comes in handy for tasks such as creating a survey, questionnaire, online poll, order form, event registration, quiz for your students and much more. The app is very intuitive for the most part so creating and even editing these types of forms is an easy task once you get the hang of how Forms works.

Taking photos has become a normal part of our lives and these days we don’t even think twice about it since we can take a picture any time, any place with our smartphones. Most people don’t even own a camera anymore since our phones do such a good job of taking photos.

One thing that many people don’t do with all of their photos is back them up or organize them to keep things in order. They tend to just leave them on their phone or maybe use their USB cable to copy some of them over to their computer. Then if they want to share a picture with someone else, they will email it which can cause a problem since today’s high-resolution pictures tend to be larger in size and you can only email a few at a time.

Fortunately, there are many ways to store your photos online and then share them with other people without having to take them from your phone or attach them to an email. Most of these services have free options as well as pay-for plans if you need the extra storage space. The question is, which online service is best for you?

Google Photos allows you to upload your pictures and even videos to their online storage repository so you can use it as a backup and a way to share photos with other people without needing to send them as an email attachment. You can also create and share photo albums with others just by sending them a link. And if you want printed copies of your pictures, you can order them from Photos as well.

With more and more of our daily tasks being done online, it makes sense that we should be able to access our important files from any device at any location that has an internet connection. Online file storage or “cloud storage” is not new and has been around for many years now. And we all know that Google has been around forever as well so it makes sense that they would have their own online storage service which they call Google Drive.

There are many other cloud storage options that you might have heard of such as Microsoft OneDrive which comes with Windows or the very popular Dropbox which most people have used at some point. All of these services have free and pay for options and most of the time the free version does the job just fine, especially for the average home or small business user.

Cloud storage services like Google Drive are a great way to back up your important files since they will be stored at an offsite location so that way if something happens to your computer and you lose everything, you will have a copy of these files that you can then recover once you get your computer back in working order. One thing to keep in mind is that you really don’t know where Google is storing your files since they might be somewhere on a server in another state or even another country!

These services are also a great way to share files with others who you are collaborating with because you can then work on the same file and any changes are saved within your Drive rather than having to email a file back and forth and try and keep track of who made the latest updates to the file. It also comes in handy for sending a large file to someone that might be too big to email because you can simply share a link to the file, and they can then download it from your Drive account. 

Email has been around for many years and even though most people now use texting as their preferred way of communicating, it doesn’t mean email is going away anytime soon. Email is still the primary method used for communication by businesses and other agencies to share information as well as to send files in the form of attachments.

Gmail is the email service that is provided free of charge by Google which if you don’t already know, is the top player when it comes to internet based services and they also have the number one rated search engine used for web searches. 

Having a Gmail account also gives you access to many other Google services such as the Google Calendar, Google Drive cloud storage, Google Photos as well as their online productivity apps such as Google Docs (word processor) and Google Sheets (spreadsheet), and many more.

The goal of this book is to get you up and running with Gmail and show you how to perform your daily email tasks such as sending and receiving emails, attaching files such as photos to an email, and creating and managing your contacts. It also covers some more advanced features such as creating labels to organize your email, scheduling emails to be sent at a later time, and also some of the more important Gmail settings. 

The focus of this book is to explain what Google Apps are and how to use the specific apps that suit your needs. The goal is not to make you a Google Apps expert, but rather to get to the point where you are proficient with the applications and can work on becoming an expert. Not everyone will have a need for all of the apps that Google provides, but the goal is to inform you about the available apps so you can choose which ones will work for you.

Google has been providing apps for many years now and keeps adding more and more as time goes on. They even have their G Suite that you can subscribe to if you want to take your app usage to the next level at the workplace, but for most home users and even small business owners, the free apps should do the job just fine.

There are also other apps that Google offers, but to cover everything they have available would make the book longer than anyone would care to read! 

You will find that many of these apps are integrated with other apps and other Google services. This is done so you can seamlessly go from one app to another without having to wonder where your data is or figure out how to tie everything together manually. Many of the apps have similar features as well, so once you learn how to use one efficiently, there’s a good chance that knowledge will transfer over to other apps. 

When it comes to online teaching and learning, it's important to have a system that is easy to use yet can utilize all of the functionality of a real life in person classroom such as assigning tasks to students, having interactive live meetings and testing them on what they have learned. Plus of course you also need a way to grade your students based on their performance.

Google Classroom has been around for some time now and is always being improved upon to make it easier to use and more capable as an online teaching and learning tool. With Classroom you can host various classes with specific students in each class and also have the same students in multiple classes. You can also prepare lesson plans, assignments, quizzes and other material specific to each one of your classes or share the content between some or all of your classes.

The goal of this book is to get you up and running with Google Classroom and show you how to create your classes, add students, distribute your learning materials and grade your student’s performance. I will also show you how to join and participate in a class from a student’s point of view so you can see how each side works. You will see that there are several ways to accomplish many of the typical tasks you will be performing so you will be able to find the way that works the best for you, or use several methods!

Google has been one of the pioneers of online collaboration since online collaboration was a thing. You might have thought Google was just a search engine that most people used to find information online, but they have an entire suite of office productivity apps that anyone with a Google account can use for free.

If you are familiar with Microsoft Office and all of the software that comes with the productivity suite then you might want to know that Google offers similar apps that can do just about everything that Office can do. I call them apps rather than software because software is more of a term for something you install on your computer where an app is more of something you can use without installing it for the most part and also use it online with many different devices.

Google Docs is Google's word processing app and is very similar to Microsoft Word and it will get the job done for most of us. Sure Word has many more advanced features but if you don’t need all of that super geeky stuff then Docs will work just fine for you and best of all, it’s free to use.

The goal of this book is to get you up and running with Google Docs and show you how to make great looking documents and also how to collaborate with other people using your online documents. I will also go over other advanced features for those who wish to get the most out of this powerful app. 

Since the internet has been around since 1983 (depending on who you ask), you would think that there are many websites available for you to visit and you would most definitely be right. Websites come and go with new sites popping up daily and if you are a business owner and don’t have your own website then you are not running your business up to its full potential.

Nowadays, the internet is the first place people go when they are looking to buy a new product or get some type of service. In fact, the internet is where most people go when looking for just about anything. So if you have something you want to share with the world, creating a website for it is the best way to get your products, services or ideas out there.

Google Sites is Google's website creation tool, and you don’t need any HTML coding experience to use it and its fairly easy to get a basic website up and running in a short amount of time. And if you want to put a little extra effort into your work, you can actually create a very professional site for your business or personal use. And best of all, it’s free to use and publish your site on the internet for all to see!

If you have used software such as Google Slides, Microsoft PowerPoint or Microsoft Publisher then you should have no problem getting up and running with Sites since it has the same look and feel as these other programs.

The goal of this book is to get you up and running with Google Sites and show you how to make great looking websites for your business or personal use. I will also go over other advanced features such as how to publish your website online and even how to use your own custom domain name.