Dropbox is Easy Sync & Backup

Let’s get one thing out of the way first: I love Dropbox.

Now that that’s done, allow me to elaborate.  Put simply, Dropbox is a program that automatically backs up your files online to the web, as well as to any other computer where you have Dropbox installed.  There are versions for Windows, Mac, Linux, and even iPhone.  With a basic free account (which is what I use) you get 2 GB of online storage for your files, although you can increase that to up to 5 GB with referrals or even pay for more storage if you need it.  For just backing up documents, though, the free version should be more than enough for most people.

Online Backup of Your Files

Once you install Dropbox on your computer, it will create a folder called “My Dropbox” that looks nearly identical to other folders on your computer.  Any files that you place in this folder automatically get synced and backed-up to the web.  If you log on to the dropbox website from another computer, all of your files will be there for you.  If something ever happens you your computer, you have an automatic, free, online backup of your files!  That’s the basics.

Super Easy File Syncing

The next real advantage is that you can install Dropbox on more than one computer at a time, and it will sync your files seamlessly between each computer.  For example, let’s say you have a school computer and a home computer.  Install Dropbox on both of them.  Then, if you edit a lesson plan or Powerpoint on your home computer, as long as that file is in your Dropbox folder, it automatically gets sent to your school computer’s Dropbox folder.  No more emailing files to yourself or copying files via a thumbdrive to get that work to school.  It happens automatically.  It’s almost as if you’re accessing the same folder in both places.  I use this to keep all of my work files synchronized between my school laptop and my home computer.

Instant Online Photo Albums

Want to share those photos of some cool project that you did in class or school event that you orchestrated?  In your “My Dropbox” folder, there’s a “Photos” folder.  When you create sub-folders in it, they instantly become online photo albums for any photo that you drop in there.  Instead of emailing all those photos, just copy them into your Dropbox Photos folder, right click on the folder, select “Copy Public Gallery Link”, and email that link to whomever you want.  It will take them to a nicely formatted online photo gallery of all the photos you put into that folder on your computer.

Share Any File with Anybody

Finally, there’s file sharing.  Your “My Dropbox” folder has a “Public” folder in it.  You can put a file into the Public folder, right click on it, and get a web link to that file that you can email to other people, put on your class website, or whatever you need!  Remember how annoying it is when someone emails you a huge file attachment?  (It eats up your email space and takes forever to download, grrr!)  Instead of being that annoying-attachment guy, you just copy the file into your Public Dropbox folder and email the link.  I’ve also used this feature to email my lesson plans as a link to my substitute teacher.  Now, I know Google Docs can be used in this way, too, but it is limited to document-type files only; Dropbox can share any type of file!

Dropbox also has a second type of file-sharing, although I haven’t tried it personally.  If you know someone else with a Dropbox account, you can share entire folders with each other, and they get synced to each of your My Dropbox folders.  In this way, you can collaborate with your colleagues.  Again, Google Docs does this very nicely for docs, spreadsheets, and presentations, with the advantage of not having to install anything, but Dropbox allows you to share any file type, including pictures, videos, programs, or whatever you want!

As a final note, remember that I said you can increase your Dropbox storage for free using referrals?  If you sign up using my Dropbox referral link, then we both get an extra 250 MB of storage space.  Sorry if that sounds a bit solicitous, but if you’re going to try it, you might as well get some extra space, right?

If you are already using Dropbox, or want to get a better idea of how powerful it is, Lifehacker has a lot of articles on additional uses for Dropbox.

So, in conclusion: I love Dropbox, and so should you.

Do Everything Online

As we know, teachers are not the most highly-paid professionals.  So, getting stuff for free is good.  Teachers also don’t have a lot of time to install and try out every computer program they might need.  So, using stuff you don’t have to set up yourself is even better.  The good: Free programs have been around for a long time, and the Internet has made them easy to get.  The better: In the last few years, a lot of alternatives have been popping up online.  You don’t even have to install them, they run right from your web browser.  This means you can use these on school computers, where the installation of random programs is usually restricted (and you often have to go through a lot of red tape to get something you want installed).  You can also recommend these to students who otherwise would pirate software because they can’t afford it either.  Here are a few suggestions:

Instead of Photoshop

• Sumo Paint.  Sumo Paint looks almost exactly like Photoshop, and requires no sign-up.
• Photoshop Express.  Photoshop Express is also by Adobe, and offers all of the basic photo-fixing features that most users need, including 2Gb of free online storage.

Instead of Word, Excel, Powerpoint

• Google Docs has most of the basic features of Word, Powerpoint, and Excel, plus even more, including collaboration.  You can save your docs online, pull them up on any computer, and even publish them as web pages… all for free.  I’m planning on a whole post on Google Docs, but let’s just say it’s awesome for now and leave it at that.

Instead of Inspiration

• Mindmeister.  Mind mapping software Inspiration is awesome, but in addition to being free and install-less, these online versions have one big advantage: online collaboration.
• Mind42.  This is of course the answer to everything (42).

Instead of Adobe Premiere, FinalCut, Movie Maker, iMovie

• JayCut.  Believe it or not, you can even edit and create videos online.  JayCut has all the basics of full video editing.
• Animoto.  Animoto can turn a bunch of photos into a 30-second music video.  Its not a full video editor, but is a cool way to document a school event if you only have pictures.

Instead of a Thumbdrive

• SkyDrive.  Are you always e-mailing your files to yourself just so you can have a copy that you can access from anywhere?  There are now a lot of online storage alternatives.  Microsoft’s own Windows Live SkyDrive allows you to store 25Gb of you files, photos, and etc., online for free.  You can then access them from anywhere and even share them with others.  This is also great for students who don’t have thumbdrives.
• DropBox is super easy to use, but is limited to 2Gb online storage and has an installed utility (for Windows, Mac, and Linux).  I’ll describe DropBox in a future post because it’s just that good.

Instead of Paperbacks

• Project Gutenberg.   Many times in English class, you’re reading the classics, which have long since been out of copyright.  That means they are free, as in free speech.  Project Gutenberg and Google have also made these works free, as in free beer.  You can download electronic copies of Huckleberry Finn, Hamlet, the Odyssey, and many, many more.  Even if you don’t want to use these to replace physical novels for your students, it saves you the trouble of transcribing or scanning if you want to include a passage on a test or quiz.
• Google Book Search.  Similar to Project Gutenberg, but also allows online viewing directly in your web browser, and has the original scanned pages.

Instead of Textbooks

• Wikibooks, These may not really replace actual textbooks completely, but they do provide great supplemental references that are easily searchable.  You can link topics on a web page and assign it as homework reading, for example.  In addition, some publishers provide online-accessible versions of some of their out-of-print books; check the publisher’s website.
• Wikiversity.  Similar to WikiBooks, but presented in a different manner.