Share a document with a class
There is no class feature and no student group, and none is needed. A link, possibly a QR code on the board, an end date: the document is handed out in a minute, with no student having to create an account.
01Publish the document
From your archive, open the document and click Share. Choose Web reader: the student opens the document in a browser, on a phone as much as on the classroom computer, with nothing to install.
If the document must not be taken away, tick Prevent downloading in the reader options. The button disappears from the page. That does not prevent a screenshot, and nobody can honestly promise you otherwise.
02Give the link an end date
In the advanced options, choose a duration. The length of a unit, or of a term. A course link left lying around ends up circulating outside the class, and you will not know.
The duration can be changed later, see the step by step on the end date.
03Add a password if the document must not leave the class
A password given out loud at the start of the lesson is enough, and it does not travel with the link. See how to set it and change it.
04Turn the link into a QR code to show on the board
Under Tools, then Permanent QR codes, create a QR code pointing at that share. Projected or printed on the exercise sheet, it saves dictating an address to thirty people.
The destination of the QR code can be changed later without reprinting anything: the same square can serve the next document.
05Hand out the link
Through the school digital space, through the homework diary, or through the projected QR code. Students have no account to create, no application to install, and no address to give.
06Share your preparation with colleagues
To work with several people on the same documents, use a shared folder rather than a public link. A folder is shared with one of your contacts, with four rights set separately: read, edit, upload, delete.
A colleague with read and upload files their own documents without being able to erase yours.
07Worth knowing
- Do not collect your students' addresses
A public link asks for no account and no address, and that is exactly what makes it right here: no student data travels, so there is nothing to protect and nothing to declare. A list of student email addresses, on the other hand, is a file of personal data about minors.
- What you see of the reading
The share page counts views and downloads, and nothing else. So you cannot use it to check that a student has read something, and that is deliberate.
- Receiving work from students
That is the other direction, and it has its own page: your account has a drop address where people send you files without an account. See receiving files.
- The rights on the document you hand out
A school textbook, a press article or a photograph belong to somebody. The French teaching exception is narrow and does not cover free publication online. When in doubt, publish the link to the source rather than the document.