Monday, January 10, 2011

Posted Comments

Here you will find links to all* of the Blogs on which I have commented:

1.  Katie's Blog: Wiki Post (12/2/10)
2.  Aime's Blog: Visuwords (12/2/10)
3.  Jackie's Blog: Prezi (12/4/10)
4.  Sarah's Blog: What Poster? (12/5/10)
5.  Sherri's Blog: Prezi for showing connections between body systems (12/6/10)
6.  Jackie's Blog: Tikatok (12/7/10)
7.  Sarah's Blog: Glogging (12/13/10)
8.  Aime's Blog: Figment: A Writer's Community (12/13/10)
9.  Katie's Blog: VoIP - Skype (12/13/10)
10. Sherri's Blog: Facebook in 6th Grade (12/14/10)
11. Janet's Blog: Podcasting Tutorials (12/14/10)
12. Katie's Blog: Wikis (12/15/10)
13. Janet's Blog: Google Docs (12/16/10)
14. Sherri's Blog: Prezi Info Sheet (12/16/10)
15. Cara's Blog: Wikis (12/27/10)
16. Sherri's Blog: WordPress Blogs as Websites (12/27/10)
17. Sarah's Blog: Weekly Planning (12/27/10)
18. Patrick's Blog: Note Flight 2 (12/29/10)
19. Patrick's Blog: Prezi II (12/29/10)
20. Cara's Blog: Exploratree (12/29/10)
21. Eileen's Blog: Jing (12/29/10)
22. Jackie's Blog: Storybird (12/29/10)
23. Patrick's Blog: Loop Labs (12/30/10)
24. Janet's Blog: Google Docs Flash Cards (12/31/10)
25. Patrick's Blog: Tonometrics (12/31/10)
26. Kirsten's Blog: Collaboration on the Web (12/31/10)
27. Joe's Blog: What is a "wiki"? (12/31/10)
28. Megan's Blog: Glogster (12/31/10)
29. Steve's Blog: Too Many Tweets (12/31/10)
30. Megan's Blog: Diigo (1/2/11)
31. Iffeisha's Blog: Social Networking (1/2/11)
32. Charlene's Blog: Video Maker (1/2/11)
33. Charlene's Blog: Personal Home Pages (1/2/11)
34. Steve's Blog: Would Shakespeare Tweet? Twitter in the Classroom (1/2/11)
35. Sarah's Blog: Cyber Safety with Google (1/2/11)
36. Sarah's Blog: An After Thought--Book-a-Minute (1/2/11)
37. Sherri's Blog: Facebook in the Classroom (1/2/11)
38. Steve's Blog: Moodle Resources (1/2/11)
39. Steve's Blog: Middle School Moodle Mayham (1/2/11)
40. Monica's Blog: Carrot Sticks (1/2/11)
41. Eileen's Blog: Jing in the Classroom (1/2/11)
42. Keith's Blog: Using Jing for Instructional Screencasts (1/4/11)
43. Janet's Blog: Google Docs Word Study Tool (1/4/11)
44. Aime's Blog: Class Blog (1/4/11)
45. Joe's Blog: Podcasting (1/6/11)
46. Kristen's Blog: Doodle.com (1/8/11)
47. Megan's Blog: Kerpoof (1/8/11)
48. Charlene's Blog: Protopage vs. PageFlakes (1/9/11)
49. Megan's Blog: Glogster Revisited (1/9/11)
50. Kristen's Blog: Discover Education for Students (1/10/11)
51. Aime's Blog: Screencast (1/10/11)
52. Joe's Blog: New Mac Apps Store (1/10/11)


*Please note that this does not include responses to comments on my own blog.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Dropbox with Students

In my last post on Dropbox I described most of the technical features of this fantastic application (can you tell I really like this one?). Check out this article for some teacher tips! I enjoy finding technology that is practical, does not take a lot of time, and can save you time.

Dropbox has myriads of uses in the general classroom and especially in a telecollborative project or classroom. Uses include:
  • general file sharing with other teachers and students (each will receive a URL if he/she does not have a Dropbox account)
  • document collaboration all saved in one place
  • sharing pictures, documents, and any other file type in one location in order to use for a larger document or project
  • similar to hand in/hand out folders but online so that anything students handed in could be viewed by the teacher at home too, not simply at school
  • folders/documents of extra resources that students/parents can access at home
  • nationwide/worldwide sharing of folders/documents for telecollaborative projects
As with any public/shared technology teachers need to instruct students on how to use it, describe what is appropriate, and continually monitor what is shared or edited. The only drawback that I have found to using it is when you have updated or created something on one computer and you want to open it on another computer but the Internet is down. You still have access to all of your files, but you cannot access whatever was just updated or created.

Do not forget to back up your files before the computer switch begins at your school! Enjoy Dropbox!

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

The World of Dropbox

I know that I emailed the cohort about Dropbox, but I had to add it to the blog so that you would have some more information about it. IT IS AMAZING!

I found that I was constantly emailing documents back and forth to myself, adding or deleting from my very small flash drive, or looking for my external hard drive! I don't have to do that anymore. Once I created my FREE account with Dropbox, I was able to download a folder to the desktop of each computer that I have. Every time I open Dropbox my files are there; it does not matter on which computer I created or edited the file!
Check out this article to see some of the numerous other features of Dropbox. Dropbox also has its own blog to help feature new options and provide some support.

What happens if your computer crashes? We all wonder about backing up our information so that we don't lose it! The most wonderful feature is that if your computer crashes or if you simply want to transfer documents once you have a new computer (think the new laptop switch!), all of your documents are backed up on your online account!
  
Another nice feature is the sharing of documents and folders. For instance, I can share all of my Spanish 2 files with all of the other Spanish 2 teachers at my school or even in the county. Collaboration is now SO easy! The recipients do not even have to have Dropbox in order to share the files because you receive a URL for each file. Think of the possibilities with your students...more to come on that in a later post! 

Dropbox also just came out of the beta version into version 1.0! Check out this review that compares Dropbox, FolderShare, SugarSync, and Snycplicity. The chart should be updated though because Dropbox now has mobile access, backs up everything online, and has a higher storage capacity (up to 8GB). You can try Dropbox to access your files on Blackberry, Android, iPhone, and iPad. I have not yet tried it on my Blackberry because I do not really feel the need to access files on my phone, but I can imagine this would be a great asset in the business world.

I really cannot say enough good things about Dropbox! If you want more space, you can pay for it, but I have found that the starting 2GB is sufficient for my school files. I would definitely consider paying for space in order to have room for my music and photo files.

If still aren't convinced, check out the video below!
 
Sign up for Dropbox today! More to come on uses in the classroom!