How many memory sticks do you own? I’ve got about 6 and I’d say they have all been used regularly. My first was 128mb and I got it in my first year at Uni and loved it, I then gradually went up in size and my current 8gb has been used constantly for about 2 1/2 years. Well…until now. Now it sits on my desk as I have a new way of storing files instead. Dropbox.
Have you tried it? It’s fantastic. You sign up to a free account for 2gb of storage which is plenty for most people unless you start using pictures in bulk or videos. Once signed up, you install it on your PC/laptop etc and link the machine to your account. Dropbox will then synchronise the files on all machines. This is great for me, I have some files stored in my Dropbox and I can access them from my PC in the study, my laptop while watching football or if I am in a random school doing some training, I can also access them online from Dropbox.com – I used it at BETT for my presentation instead of taking/remembering my memory stick.
So far, so Google. With Google Docs I can access files from anywhere, so what’s the difference?
With Google, I’d have to log in, upload my file to Google and then work on it. If I want it to be a .doc or .xls then I’d need to export it. With Dropbox, you have 1 folder within Windows that works like a normal folder and you just drag files to it, save them in there or just right-click and add new doc/xls/ppt or whatever. Like I said, it behaves as a normal Windows folder which is great for beginners. There isn’t the collaboration of Google Docs, but I don’t always want to collaborate, sometimes I just want to have access to certain files wherever I am.
For me, the best part of Dropbox is the Public folder. I make a lot of ‘How-to’ guides for our VLE. I have a lot of them stored in my Public Dropbox folder. I can create the guide, get a URL for the file and put this into our VLE or share it with people. If I then change the document, the URL remains the same and I don’t need to keep uploading the new guide with every update. Very useful for me at the moment!
Ok…so it’s cool, but what could schools use it for? How about planning? What if there were a number of teachers in the same school/year group that all used the same Dropbox account. They could then access the planning docs for that term on their laptops, in the suite or wherever they wanted. They can all add their planning when they are ready. I don’t know about you, but I used to get to school after a weekend or evening of planning, then upload the documents into the shared drive and have to tell most people where they were (despite a sensible folder structure). With Dropbox, they wouldn’t have to wait until Monday morning. Most schools I know can’t access their server remotely, so why not store the useful stuff like planning on Dropbox?
With the above example, Google Docs would be the ideal, but most schools are not at this stage yet, so Dropbox could be a small step before the large leap into the Cloud! In Hampshire we enter the Cloud in a big way from September 2010, but I’m not sure how many schools will be ready for this, but that is another blog post.
So why not give Dropbox a go? If you sign-up using this link, we will both get an extra 250mb of space on our accounts. If you already use Dropbox, please leave a comment below so others can see the benefit. Or…do you use a different/better system? Let me know!
NB – If you are in a Hampshire school, we have tested Dropbox on an Edict and an Agile system and it will work, but you may need to contact Edict or your provider for a bit of help setting it up to go through the proxy servers etc.
Just out of interest, 50GB on Dropbox is £6.50 a month. a 16gb Memory Stick is £20 (www.7dayshop.com)
I love dropbox and plan to gradually faze out my use of pen drives as a result. Also getting more students into it
Great article…I’ve been using dropbox since September and I think it’s fantastic. It works seamlessly between four machines I use, two macs and two pc .
I agree it’s a great replacement for a shared server in a school, especially as it’s accessible everywhere. I think it’s a different beast to google docs and is much more user friendly for inexperienced / techphobic teachers. In my current role I go into schools with a set of laptops. I have access to their wifi but not their network. I need to run from machine to machine with a usb stick to add files pupils need or to copy their work to show to other users on a computer hooked up to the IWB.
I need to see how many machines I can set up the same free account on so I can use it as a simple network. Will let you know how it goes – unless you already know 🙂
I use dropbox, it is great. So simple to use and makes working between PC’s simple. Files are where you want them, when you want them.
I also have a school dropbox account which the children can drop things into for me to look at, have assessed, put onto the blog etc. It’s a quicker way of showing me something they have created than attaching it to an e-mail.
Fantastic brilliant idea. I love it when i get home from work and open up my home laptop and my dropbox tells me that files have been updated and new files added. It reminds me how much I achieved at work.
I completely agree with you! I have saved so much time since installing it in school and at home (and I am always losing pendrives!)
I like it so much I blogged about it too, last week.
Alan
http://learnerham.org.uk/?p=360
Re my earlier comment, went on the dropbox forum and posted asking how many computers you can add the same dropbox account on. The answer is there is no limit,which is great news for anyone working with computers with wifi and no network access
I would like to use this for my creative writing club. At the moment they only get the chance to write their novels for half an hour once a week – but if I set this up for them then they could access their files from home, work on them and then open them back up again at school! Much easier than my other idea of getting them to email it to themselves back and forwards, which would have been a nightmare!
Do you have a VLE? Ideally this would be a way of sharing documents for a purpose. Then you could have an area for your creative writing club, but each class could also have areas. Doing multiple areas/clubs in dropbox would be difficult if not impossible. Good for just 1, but what if someone else wants to try it?
fantastic! I’m keen to hear how that goes with lots of users
I too am a fan of Dropbox and use it on my Mac, my PCs and my iPod touch. I’m not showing off here, just illustrating how versatile the service is.
Sadly, however, it appears to be blocked by my RBC so cannot be used in schools.
I use it for storing small files that I may need to use when training away from my office or to sync files when they are still ‘a work in progress’, that way I can ensure I am working on the latest version no matter which computer I am working with.
I wonder, though, whether anyone has also used Evernote. It works in a similar way and I use it especially for note taking at conferences or meetings.
I have signed up for dropbox as I forget my pen drive or sometimes it doesn’t work on the computer at school. I have started by using it for my plans. I haven’t tried it at school yet so hope it isn’t blocked by LA.
Like Doug I am using it between on my pc and mac.
Thanks for tweeting about dropbox.