Sunday, July 7, 2013

Dropbox



For this week’s self-exploration of the best web classroom tools, I chose to look into Dropbox.  Jeff Dunn wrote about Dropbox in the article, The 100 Best Web 2.0 Classroom Tools Chosen By You, stating, “I have shared many files with this and have accessed my files from a myriad of computers – even when out of the country!”
A Dropbox account is simple to generate, all you need is an email address.  Dropbox is like an online folder saving all your important documents so that you can access them using a variety of devices.  Your work is saved to the web making it accessible anywhere!  Dropbox syncs work across all devices – you can access work on a personal computer, phone, or tablet.  Files are backed up and you can return to older versions or restore deleted files. 
Dropbox keeps your work safe.  You can share documents securely with your team/classmates, access older versions of your documents, and restore deleted files.  The best part of Dropbox is that you do not have to worry about email attachments!
I have a student that recently began using Dropbox to access his assignments on his school computer, home laptop, and iPad.  He loves it and is able to access and make changes to his assignments where ever he is. 
Using Dropbox within the classroom keeps students connected to each other, giving them easy ways to work with together and share documents & pictures, collaborate on projects, and form study groups.  Dropbox also allows students to socially construct knowledge by working together to create documents and share resources.

1 comment:

  1. I would agree with what you write. Dropbox is a very useful tool where people can share documents. However, I wonder about the reason why it is called a web 2.0 tool. It is on the list, but I wonder about this from the perspective of a definition - red/write. Yes, it has this ability, but do student truly socially construct knowledge with this tool and if so how? In terms of making thinking visible, I also question this. I'm not seeing where you applied those particular lenses to the tool and instead have considered the affordances and constraints of it. Would you agree?

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