Thing 4: Cloud storage

I have been using DropBox for several years now.  The primary reason that I started the account was not for backup or accessibility of files (which seem to be the primary reasons that people use systems like Dropbox) but for file sharing.  I use rather large power-point files for class, especially for my AP Environmental Science students.  These files include a lot of information that is not found in the textbook, or is organized in a different way, so I wanted to provide access to the presentations for the students.  The problem is that the school website has a size limit on files that we can upload, and these presentations far exceed the limit.  Dropbox has a feature that allows uploaded files to be shared with other web users, so I add a link to these files from the test review section of my school web page (see here for my class APES page, which has links to multiple files shared on Dropbox, or here is a direct link to a presentation on Geology).

An alternative that I discovered recently is Google Drive.  Actually I have also been using this platform to share files for a few years too, for a church group and for the Cross Country team.  But I realized recently that if you install Google Drive on your computer, you can automatically sync/back up 15 GB of space for free.  This is not enough if you have a lot of photos to back up (that's where Flickr or other services come in) but would be a good option for lesson plans, student handouts, etc that one might work on at home and at school.

Sarah noted that Dropbox does not seem to work properly when installed on school computers.  I noticed the same thing, but since I am primarily using it for file sharing that did not really matter.  You can log in to your dropbox account and upload files using a web interface instead of dragging them into a folder on your computer  I am not sure if Google Drive will present similar problems on the school computers - I have not tried it yet.  But it is working fine from my home computer, where I have 1.9GB uploaded an synced.  Below is a screen shot of what the interface looks like.