How to enable "Offline" access and editing in Google Drive and protect against lost work during a wifi outage

Yesterday a student came to me with a Google Drive issue due to intermittent wifi connectivity at home. Sometime during the night as she was composing her essay she lost wifi connectivity on her Chromebook and subsequently lost all of her work during that period of time.

Fortunately, there is a solution to protect against this type of data loss in Google Drive and as an added bonus have the ability to edit Google Docs, Presentations and Drawings even when there is no internet connection available.

Video Link

Please note that you can only enable "offline" access and editing in Google Drive on a Chromebook or on a computer using the Chrome browser. 

How to enable "offline" access and editing in Google Drive

1. Open the Google Drive menu (Inbox)
2. Click on the "more" tab on the left hand side menu 
3. Click on "offline" 
4. Syncing should begin immediately for Chromebook users
5. If you are using the Chrome browser on a computer you will need to click on "enable offline

Be patient when switching between offline and online mode. It can sometimes take a few seconds for changes to be updated when syncing between modes.