World-Shaker

"Despite the pervasiveness of law enforcement surveillance of digital communication, the FBI still has a difficult time monitoring Gmail, Google Voice, and Dropbox in real time. But that may change soon, because the bureau says it has made gaining more powers to wiretap all forms of Internet conversation and cloud storage a “top priority” this year."

—

Andrew Weissmann: FBI wants real-time Gmail, Dropbox spying power.

Absolutely not.

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There are a few more days left in the Dropbox Space Race. If you have a .edu email account, you can get even more space than usual when you sign up for a free Dropbox account (which you can totally do by clicking this link). 

How big is Dropbox? Hint: very big →

An article in Forbes has some astounding stats that give you a sense of the size and scope of Dropbox’s business.

• A billion files saved every 24 hours.
• It has 100 million users, twice as many as a year ago.
• Nearly 96 percent of its customers use Dropbox for free.
• About $500 million in revenues.
• Almost 250 employees. It started the year with 90 employees.
• A year ago when its revenues were $250 million, it was valued by private investors at over $4 billion.

I cannot stop using Dropbox. Even when my current employer was all like, “Here’s 2.15 free gigs of network storage space,” I was all like, “NOPE. Dropbox.” 

Oh, and if you’re looking to sign up and want to be awesome and do it with this link so I get some extra free storage, I’ll Internet High Five you: http://db.tt/YWdEWoAz

Internet High Fives are the best high fives. 

(Source: courtenaybird)

How to get enough space to save all your teacher stuff, lessons, etc!

revolutionizeed:

Three things!  Download them and you will have a free 14 gigabytes and possibly more if you get others to sign up.  

Dropbox - 2gb+ (up to 18 gbs possible free)

Google Drive - 5 gb

SkyDrive - 7 gb

I’m thinking that this will be extremely useful this school year!  I’m saving different things in each program to ensure I can keep it all organized never lose anything!

On that note, you can toss me some free storage space on Dropbox if you sign up using this link: http://db.tt/guqa2EU (or just use the link above). But Dropbox is outstanding. We’ve actually transitioned my entire team to using a Team account at work.

Collecting Student Work Using Dropbox →

arosiek:

world-shaker:

The post covers three free services you could use. Here’s one (click through for the others):

Ever wish you could email files to your Dropbox? @ralphholzmann did to, so he wrote a web application that does just that. After connecting the app to your dropbox account, the app provides you with a unique email address. Simply ask the kids to add that email address to their contact lists and they can quickly and easily email anything to your Dropbox account.


Features of send to dropbox: 

• Incredibly simple to use. Just attach the app to your Dropbox account and you’re set
• Students just have to attach the file they want to send to you and it magically appears in your Dropbox folder, accessible from ANY of your devices
• Ability to specify the folder that the files are saved to. Folders can contain the From address, subject or the date
• Will also automatically unzip archived files for you
• Can be used from an iPad or other tablet device

Downsides of send to dropbox:

• The only one I can think of is that not all of our students have an email address

Connect your Dropbox at http://sendtodropbox.com

1) I’m sorry to keep reblogging from world-shaker, but almost all of his posts are relevent to what we’re talking about in class, will talk about in class, or tech integration in general.  If you only start reading one Tumblr because of the assignment, it should be him.

2) I really like the idea of using drop box for students to turn in work.  I’m sure we’ve all had students who do work, have it completed on time, and then forget to actually bring it in.  This might solve some of these issues, and cut down on the number of emergency school runs that parents have to make to bring in work.

3) We’re going to be working on a class website, and JotForm (the last resource in the actual article) can be embedded to a website.  If I can get it to work for me, I’m going to add it to my website, for sure.

Thanks for the compliments :o) [internet high five]

Collecting Student Work Using Dropbox →

The post covers three free services you could use. Here’s one (click through for the others):

Ever wish you could email files to your Dropbox? @ralphholzmann did to, so he wrote a web application that does just that. After connecting the app to your dropbox account, the app provides you with a unique email address. Simply ask the kids to add that email address to their contact lists and they can quickly and easily email anything to your Dropbox account.


Features of send to dropbox: 

• Incredibly simple to use. Just attach the app to your Dropbox account and you’re set
• Students just have to attach the file they want to send to you and it magically appears in your Dropbox folder, accessible from ANY of your devices
• Ability to specify the folder that the files are saved to. Folders can contain the From address, subject or the date
• Will also automatically unzip archived files for you
• Can be used from an iPad or other tablet device

Downsides of send to dropbox:

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thenextweb:

CanvasDropr is a free Web-based service that lets you – surprise – drop files onto a digital canvas. Users can upload images, videos, PDFs and other documents, presentations and whatnot to share them with others. (via CanvasDropr: “like a visual Dropbox meets Google Docs for rich media” - The Next Web)

The No Pie Rule for Dropbox Services

This post on Google Drive’s Terms of Service caused a bit of a stir yesterday, as well as some thoughtful replies. The best reply (in my mind) came from tiffanyb. I’ve quoted her response below because it was that good:

These two quotes actually say the same thing. It’s just that the part where Dropbox enumerates what rights they need to provide the service is cut out of the quote, and included in Google’s. 

In order to operate a service in which your files are hosted remotely in order for you to gain access to them from anywhere in the world, the company providing the service actually DOES have to do things that are legally considered creating derivative works, public performance, reproduction, etc. 

For example, you can’t run a redundant, always-availabe service like Dropbox without copying the files uploaded to it across multiple redundant servers, to say nothing of backups. Making it available via the Internet? That’s public performance. Compressing/optimizing the bits you upload to make them faster to deliver? Legally, that’s a derivative work.

The real, substantial difference is that since Google runs a whole raft of services, what’s covered under the umbrella of “for the purpose of providing the services” is a lot broader than it is with Dropbox, which really only does one thing.

Dropbox-like services can be extremely useful for educators, Google Drive included. It’s hard to explain to non-users just how awesome it is to have something automatically synced between all your computers and mobile devices, while still being available anywhere via the web. The ability to share those documents and folders makes these services even better. You have plenty of compelling options out there. But I want to stress one rule we use in my department:

Always follow The No Pie Rule

The No Pie Rule is actually spelled “No PII,” which stands for “No Personal Identifying Information.”The reason my team can’t use a service like Dropbox for more advanced document sharing is their inadequate encryption setup.

It’s complicated, but the gist is that if your data is kept in a metaphorical locked box (cue Al Gore), ideally you should be the only one with the key. Instead, Dropbox keeps the only copy of your key. This means if someone steals the key from Dropbox, they have access to all your data (another explanation here). That’s not good if you have anything in there that’s FERPA sensitive, for example.

Dropbox has been hacked in the past (both Dropbox and Facebook had a recent security issue with iOS and Anroid devices). So have other, similar services. The problem is that some users store sensitive and inappropriate material in their synced folders. In general, avoid:

• Anything that would lead to a FERPA violation
• Anything that HR would freak out about
• Anything that could lead to your identity being stolen (this includes copies of tax forms, receipts for online purchases, and even monthly budgets; yes, people have put these things in Dropbox)

In other words: If you’re using a Dropbox service, No Pie!

Who owns your files on Google Drive? →

The most damning information here:

Dropbox — terms can be found here:

“Your Stuff & Your Privacy: By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.”

Google Drive — terms can be found here:

“Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps).”

Google Officially Announces Google Drive

Go Google: Google Drive (by Google)

A Must-Have Guide to Google Drive for Educators →

Nothing technical-just an overview. I’d recommend a read since Google Drive is widely expected to launch this week (and compete with Dropbox).

Facebook And Dropbox Are Seriously Vulnerable To Hackers Right Now →

A motivated hacker could copy a plain text file off of your mobile device that would grant him access to your entire account.

The problem exists within the app itself — the sensitive data isn’t encrypted, it simply sits on your device in plain, readable form.

There’s no jailbreak required to get this data either. Using a free piece of software called iExplore, which lets you browse your iPhone as if it were an external hard drive, Wright was able to gain access to the text file.

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The Nerdy Teacher: Quick Hit - Saving Documents from iPad to Dropbox

I wanted to share with everyone a way to save Pages and Keynote files from the iPad to your Dropbox account. Here is a link to the document I shared with my students on Dropbox. http://db.tt/VySWoJ6y

Basically, you create a document using Pages or Keynote and email to yourself. You go to your email through Safari and access your email. In the email, open the document and it will take you to a new tab. From the new tab, it will give you different programs you can open the document in. Choose Dropbox and it will let you save the file in an existing folder or you can create a new one. The PDF is a bit more detailed, but it works every time. Give it a try.

Dropbox as a Hand-in Folder →

A great, simple application of a free tool. Click through for the tutorial:

If you’re moving to a more open approach to assignments, this sort of logic is old school.  Consider the following scenarios that just spring to mind.

1)     A student is using her own personal device and is attached to a guest network at school;
2)     A student is using her own personal device and is attached to the wireless at her favourite restaurant or her network at home.

Old school logic says to email it to the teacher (which means giving out your email address to students) or put it on a memory key, remember to put it in her backpack, plug the memory key into a computer at school and then submit it.

Now, if you’re using a wiki or learning management system, uploading of files is typically built into them so run with that.  But, what if you don’t want the hassle or don’t need the functionality of managing that?  Head back to Dropbox and see what else you can do with it.

The Complete Dropbox for Educators →

A collection of eight excellent articles to help any educator get started with the free online storage service, Dropbox.