I love Dropbox.
For anyone that doesn't know, Dropbox is a cloud storage service. You can install it on your computers, phone and tablet, and anything you save to the "Dropbox" folder (just like you might save it to "My Documents"), and it the file is automatically available on all your connected devices. For instance, if you take a picture on your phone, it we already be on your computer when you get home.
You can also share your Dropbox folders and make them publicly available.
Anyway, another feature of Dropbox is that you can create shared and public folders that can be accessed by anyone, anywhere, or restricted by password or by user name. This is clearly superior to using a blog as an online portfolio, especially if the student is submitting anything other than text or images to his or her portfolio.
I don't point this out to marginalize blogs as a useful educational tool, there are still plenty of other uses and aspects to blogging that can be incredibly useful in a classroom. I use this example to illustrate the extreme difficulty of teaching practical technology use. Someone can spend a lot of time figuring out how best to use one tool to accomplish their goals, only to one day be exposed to a different tool that does the same thing better.
As teachers, this is of great importance to us. Since it is almost guaranteed that our students will be on the cutting edge of technology, it is imperative that we be there as well, and being on the cutting edge of technology means constant change.
Dropbox sounds like such a great storage service! I think that as a teacher I find myself trying to access a lot of my documents at home, on my classroom computer, as well as other computers around the school. Having dropbox would get rid of having to carry a USB drive everywhere and remembering to bring it to the different computers used throughout the day. I also like that the user can decide what is shared publicly and what is kept private. Thank you for sharing this on your blog, it was very informative!
ReplyDeleteHi J. P. Dropbox does indeed sound like a great storage option. As Danielle mentioned, it eliminates having to carry around a USB everywhere. You do bring up a good point about teachers having to be on the cutting edge of technology. It is quite difficult to be kept abreast of all technological advances. It's never ending. Just when we get use to one, a better one does come along. Thanks for your blog post! Dropbox is a great and convenient tool.
ReplyDeleteHey John!
ReplyDeleteSo this school year has been by far my hardest year. The evidence of this is that I have lost 2 USBs. :-( When it comes to storing my and saving my information and documents, I always rely on my USBs. I have had the same USB for 3 years and during this chaotic year, I lost not just this one, but my second one.
With a Dropbox, this problem could have been minimized. I really like the idea of not carrying or worrying about saving a document to a USB. Is the Dropbox something that I can get and use without the schools permission? Or does the county have to purchase this product? I would like to use a Dropbox next year if possible.
Actually, Dropbox is free. You might need admin privleges to install it, you you'd have to talk to the technology person at your school. My district has actually put Dropbox on the "you don't need admin to install this stuff" server (along with things like word, acrobat and flash).
DeleteI think most schools have some type of dropbox program that they use for teachers. The drive each teacher has is definitely not large enough to save all the lessons/smartboard flipcharts for each class! I do not use dropbox but once a week I save all my flashdrives, etc. onto my external hard drive and delete the previous one.
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else have mixed feelings about flashdrives? It's cool that they are small and fit in your pocket but if anyone bumps into it while plugged in it could break off, and the fact that they are so small- easy to lose!