Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Sharing Documents and Files Using Dropbox


There are various methods Dropbox may be used to share documents and folders with others.
  1. Share Link via Email
    • Pro: Material remains private between sender and recipient of email
    • Con: Reliance on Email as a means of communication
      1. Create a document and save it to Dropbox
      2. Locate the file in Dropbox
      3. Select the Link Icon in the upper right window of screen
      4. Select Email Link
  2. Share Link via Student Blog
    • Pro: Easily publish link for others to view
    • Pro: No reliance on Email
    • Con: Material is published on web - maybe an issue for younger students depending upon school policy
      1. Create a document and save it to Dropbox
      2. Locate the file in Dropbox
      3. Select the Link Icon in the upper, right window of screen
      4. Copy Link to Clipboard
      5. Paste into blog
  3. Share Folder with a Specific Recipient
    • Pro: Entire Contents of a folder are shared with teacher
    • Pro: Sender may add documents to folder and recipient has access to this new content
    • Con: Entire contents of folder are shared - this could be a problem if enabling camera loads and sharing photo library
      1. Open the Safari App
      2. Sign in to the Dropbox website (if you haven't already)
      3. Click on the file row to the right of the file's name to select it
      4. Press Get link from the blue action bar across the top of the file browser
      5. Select Share and add email and message into whare window that appears
      6. Tap Send

Camera Uploads

The “Camera Upload” feature in Dropbox allows for Dropbox to sweep the Photo Roll of an iPad and upload anything on that Photo Roll to a folder in Dropbox. This allows the student to share the file via a link in an email.
This process allows for relatively private sharing between student and teacher as well as a quick and simple answer to the problem of sharing large files created in iMovie. Once the folder is shared, every time students make a create a new iMovie project, it will be easily accessible by the teacher.

Enabling Camera Uploads in Dropbox

  1. Have students create a dropbox account (http://www.dropbox.com) and download the app to their iPads.
  2. When signing up for the account, make sure students enable Camera Uploads.
  3. When on dropbox.com, have students rename their Camera Uploads folder “Camera Uploads-TheirLastName” (this way you can later organize these shared folders in a larger folder on your dropbox account).
  4. Have students share that Camera Uploads folder with the teacher.
  5. On the teacher account, you can then put all the student Camera Uploads folders into a single folder, or group by grade or class.

4 comments:

  1. Very informative post..
    Dropbox provides various method which we can use for free cloud storage , documents sharing.you can work from any location, computer, tablet or smart phone.

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  2. Nice information that you have shared. It is helps us by keeping our data safe and secure online by cloud storage .

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  3. Thanks for this informative post. i really Appreciate

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  4. Reading through this post has really educated me. Thanks

    ReplyDelete