Drop It Like It's Hot!

So within the span of about three days, I had two colleagues talk to me about using Drop Box for three different purposes! I was intrigued. I know it isn't that new, but it was news to me!

1. My teammate mentioned it as a way for us, as a team, to collaborate together on the run. We do not have common planning time and we have used Google Docs in the past for this purpose. Drop Box is the new and improved Google Docs/Drive.

2. My teammate also shared the fact that the need for flash drives would be eliminated! Do you know how often fifth graders lose or forget to bring their flash drives? With drop box they can put their work in the "cloud" and access it easily at home and at school. This also allows the teachers to access it as well because a student can share it when they are done!

3. Another teammate told me that the tech. specialist from our school could come and demonstrate how to use Drop Box on the IPad for projects. We are planning on having the students use the Educreations app to create a presentation about their guided reading books. My teammate was concerned because it is very difficult to save and share Educreations projects when you have multiple people using the same IPads. One user IPad is no problem. Also, you can't save on Educreations until you record. So, students need to have everything planned out and put somewhere until they are ready to place it all in Educreations and record. Some of their pieces will be in the camera roll and others they will place directly into the drop box. Drop box is better because this set of Ipads is being used in grades 3-5. Any student can delete pictures from the camera roll, but if it is in Drop Box, it is safe! When the projects are all done, then the students can save them to Educreations to be watched.

4. I will use Drop Box, along with Document Writer, to make my files mobile! I love the idea of working from anywhere on any device. 

Wait! Most importantly, the free version has plenty of space! I think it is 2 gigs.

I went to dropbox.com and downloaded it onto my laptop. It then gave a prompt to have it added as an app for my IPhone. It sent me a text which sent me to the app page. Easy!