In my class we work with a multitude of files of various types. One of the biggest problems my students run into is that they save a file and have no ideas what they named it or where they put it. Then they get behind because they have to redo work that they have already done once. This then becomes a repetitive cycle because the students don’t understand why they need to be organize and name files appropriately. We as teachers and adults assume that students  are going to organize and name their files appropriately as we do.

I try to keep file organization simple with my students so that they can build good habits of file organization. I require them to have a folder for each class that they are in with me. If they have multiple classes with me they will need separate folders. This then forces them to think about and beware of where they are saving their files. I take this a step further and require that they create a folder for units and finally a project level folder. Once again because it is teaching them to build a good habit. But it also teaches the a basic hierarchical structure to organize files. This method is needed because often have multiple projects or topics related to a large unit.

The second part of this is that I have my students use a standard naming convention, this way student know exactly what they should be naming their files at any given time. The way I build this naming convention is through a standard “formula” of <assignment name> – <studentlastname>. This is a fairly simple way for all of my students to name and keep track of their files.