My Beauty Best Teacher

Today, I'd like to bring the Screencast application to your attention.

Screencast is a way for users to store information online. Now, you may think that this sounds similar to Dropbox, but Screencast throws in a couple of curveballs in order to make it one of the best online storage systems available! Read on for more information!

If you've read my post about Dropbox, you know that Dropbox is really an online flash drive system. Using DB, you can share information with others, but you have to go through the hassle of creating a public folder, making sure the other person is a current user of Dropbox, sending the link...yadda, yadda. It's a whole ordeal. If you've read my post about Dropbox, you also know that it is free to use if you only need 2GB of storage. I'll come back to this point later.

Screencast makes sharing information with users much easier. If you've tried to share something using Dropbox, you understand that there's a whole process you must go through in order for that other person to see your materials: you must create a public folder, you must make sure the other person has a current account with Dropbox, and then you must send that person the link. When that's all you know, it doesn't seem like such a hassle. But if you're a Screencast user, you're going to find sharing material with other people so much easier.

And that 2GB of free storage I mentioned for Dropbox earlier? You can have the exact same amount of storage plus 2GB monthly bandwidth for free using Screencast! Users have the option to upgrade to 25 GB of storage and 400GB monthly bandwidth for $10/month or $100/year. Whoo-hoo!

You may be worried about privacy with Screencast because I'm making it sound like it's open to everyone. Fear not; Screencast offers 4 different privacy options so that you can make sure only the "right" people see your materials.

So what does Screencast do, exactly? I mean, we know it stores materials, but if we're already using Dropbox, why would we get a Screencast account, too?

Allow me to enlighten you.

The biggest plus to this account is that you can upload viewable movies, music, and presentations. With Dropbox, you can store the files, but people have to download them in order to play them...and what if that person doesn't have the correct computer programs in order to view the presentation? Time wasted. With Screencast, you pretty much just embed the video into your website and then anyone can view it with the proper privacy settings and link(s).

Speaking of privacy, I mentioned earlier that there are 4 privacy settings available on Screencast. Here they are:

1. Public: Anyone and everyone can view your materials. It will be listed in the library content of the site's general search engine, and to share things with others, just give them the simple URL. 
2. Hidden: You must specifically give the URL to people before they can view it; searching for this material won't produce any results.
3. Password Protected: You must have the URL and a password in order to view it. 
4. Authenticated: You must have a Screencast account in order to view it. 

While I'm not quite sure about the purpose behind privacy setting number 4 yet, I could see settings 1-3 as a very positive addition for classroom use. Let's say I want to post materials ahead of time (I'm a planner, people! I like to plan lessons a month or two in advance!). I can go ahead and store the materials on my Screencast and click "hidden" until I'm ready to share it with my students. If you have pictures or videos of students that you'd rather not allow the general public to see, a password protected privacy setting would be ideal. Parents, students, and administrators would have the password to access the materials, but Joe Shmoe down the street would not have access. I like it!

If you're a teacher that likes to use Prezi presentations, podcasts, iMovie clips, etc. in your class, you may need a place to store all those files so that your students can find them any time they need to. Screencast seems like it would get the job done!

Try it out and let me know what you think!

This reminds me a little of Dropbox and eBackpack, but it's a little bit more show-y...I LOVE it!!

Live Binders is a site that allows the user to upload information to their "binder." (And when I say "binder," I mean it literally looks like a virtual 3-ring binder.) It allows users to insert "tab dividers" into their "binders," too, so there is an element of organization to it all. It looks like users can create as many binders as they want, so long as your total storage doesn't equal more than 100 MB.  I realize that's not as much information as the free version of Dropbox allows, but it doesn't appear that a user would really NEED that much storage...

I haven't been using Live Binder very long (I'm going on 15 minutes at the moment...), so I may need to edit this post later. But it appears that a user wouldn't really NEED that much storage, since all you'd really be posting is web links. It doesn't appear that users can upload files (Word docs, Excel, PowerPoints, etc.) to the binders -- just URLs. The tutorial suggests that, once downloaded, you place the "LiveBinder It" button on your search bar. When you find a website you'd like to add to the binder, you just click that button, and it automatically is added for you.

I was hoping this might be an alternative to the English binders I have my students keep in class (which consist of the syllabus, agendas, notes, handouts, and graded papers), but...no such luck. However, this would be great for a teacher to use on his/her classroom website. Instead of cluttering your webpage with lots of links, you could just post the Live Binder, instead. Much less clutter on your website, and the links would display beautifully when the "binder" is opened.

This might be beneficial for students if they were creating a lot of web documents throughout the school year. THEN this Live Binder might be useful as a type of portfolio. For instance, if Bobby does a Glog over the Great Depression, a Prezi over the life and times of William Shakespeare, a Voki character summary over his favorite person from Lord of the Flies, a Fake Wall over Edgar Allan Poe, AND has a full Shelfari bookshelf by the end of the semester, he could create a Live Binder to display all 6 assignments he'd done. He could even include particularly compelling blog posts in his Live Binder portfolio... All Bobby would have to do is retrieve the URLs from those projects and post them in his Live Binder. From there, all he'd have to do is e-mail his teacher the link to the Live Binder, and his semester portfolio is done.

On a simpler note: maybe Live Binder is an alternative to having students e-mail their teacher the link to their online project(s). Maybe each student should have a Live Binder and keep links to all online projects in that binder. Then, when it's time to grade, the teacher just opens the binders and begins to grade....

Hmm. I'm imagining the possibilities riiiiight nowwwww.....

::Edit:: I just made my first Live Binder, and it's full of English links. I typically have an "English links" page on my classroom website, as well as a "Resources" page. The English links are, obviously, all links that are related to English. The "resources" are more "life-related" links: medical disorders or disabilities, hotlines (such as for abuse, bullying, etc.), info on college and scholarships, and some encouraging quotes for those hard times.  If I make Live Binders of each, I can condense everything to one "Links" page, and save myself some time and space on my classroom website! Plus, I can update all the time without messing up the entire layout of the site. Whoo-hoo! Here's the link to my English Links Live Binder. It still needs some tweaking, but I'll get it figured out soon. Also, I found out that you CAN upload documents. I tried it with just a picture, and it worked perfectly. I assume it also works with Microsoft Word docs, too, but I guess I'll have to find out next time I play with it.

Oh, and I just realized that I don't have to give you the actual link to my English binder because...oh, look at that...it can be embedded onto your own personal website! Ahh! Can't this get any better?!


   


   

eBackpack reminds me a lot of Dropbox, except it's designed specifically for education.

If you're unfamiliar with both of these tools, let me summarize their mission: they make your life easier! Both eBackpack and Dropbox are online "cloud storage systems" that allow you to store your digital materials for free on the internet. One great thing about storing materials online is that you can have access to them wherever Internet is available.

Teachers can set up student accounts and categorize them by classes (much like KidBlog.org), and students can access classroom files from anywhere that has an internet connection. The 14-day trial is free, and then after that, students can stay with the basic, free version or change to one of the 4 paid versions. Another great feature? It's iPad-compatible! For those really high-tech students who only carry their iPads to class, they won't be left out of storage opportunities if they want to use eBackpack, along with the rest of the class.

Students can store digital projects and papers in their eBackpack. When they're ready to grade, don't worry about printing anything; teachers can grab the link from the student and grade the digital projects online. I love how this contributes to my paperless classroom goal!

Nice idea!

I'm not sure about you, but I have several electronic devices that can hold files. I have a gigantic backup drive, several smaller flash drives, an iPhone, a laptop, and a desktop at work. I realize that, oftentimes, I run into the simple problem of needing a file that's on a different device. While it's not a huge deal to transport materials via e-mail or flash drive, it can get to be a pain after awhile.

That's where Dropbox comes in and makes your life oh-so-much easier.

The basic version is free and allows you to store 2GB worth of material. You download the Dropbox "program" from http://www.dropbox.com/. It creates a folder for you that's easily accessible. You can drag and drop items into this folder, and it updates that file on every other electronic device you own that has Dropbox on it. When you get to the home page of the website, there's a simple and short video you can watch to show you exactly how Dropbox works.

What I like best, though, is its ability to store things online. I've been e-mailing things to myself for years and thought that was a fool-proof method. And it's fine, but Dropbox sounds easier and a little bit cooler! There's no "e-mailing yourself" with Dropbox -- everything just updates automatically (so long as you have the Dropbox application installed onto your computer). As a very busy gal, I can appreciate automatic things!

Before I started making my classroom website, I viewed dozens of other high school English teachers' sites. I tried to figure out what they posted, what their daily work was, how they graded materials, and even what school supplies students were required to bring to class every day. I found that several teachers required students to purchase flash drives (jump drives, USB drives, thumb drives...external storage...whatever you want to call it)! I was mildly surprised since they aren't THAT cheap. I was always of the mindset that students could just e-mail documents to themselves if they needed to store a copy; no need to buy some fancy flash drive for my class.

But I actually think I like Dropbox better.

While I was working on research papers with my students earlier this year, I told several students to e-mail the document to themselves in order to save it. My kids looked at me like I'd grown horns. Some of them had no idea how to attach a file to an e-mail. While I know that that situation was a "teachable moment," it would be nice to have a program that is so simple, there's no way they can get confused. Plus, the whole process of Dropbox seems like it would shave some time off your task, and who couldn't use more time??

The great thing is, students could keep their online Dropbox for years...not just in high school. The e-mail addresses my students use are through the school. While that's a fantastic service to them, that e-mail address will eventually expire, right? So what happens to all their stuff? It's gone. What a bummer -- especially if you had important documents like a resume on there! But I view Dropbox as a sort of no-hassle e-mail address, and it would never expire. Students could easily access documents from years in the past. When I hear that, I have an image in my mind's eye: a student in college is trying to write a research paper. This student has only written a research paper once in her life, and it was years ago, so she doesn't really remember all there is to it. In a classic, Hollywood, "lightbulb" moment, this student remembers about her high school Dropbox. She's able to access notes and even a paper that she wrote in high school. With these examples and study aids, she's able to write a paper that makes her and her professor proud. Isn't that a happy image?

...OK, all cheesiness aside: I really do think Dropbox is a valuable tool for students, teachers, and everyone in between. Check it out.

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April 7th edit: Well, I just tried to share a folder with a colleague. I'd been having a lot of trouble being able to post podcasts, so I was trying to figure out if I could post them on Dropbox and then share my podcasts folder! It may work, except everyone you share the folders with has to be a member of Dropbox. Of course, if you're using Dropbox in your classroom with students ANYway, then maybe it doesn't matter. My kids aren't currently using Dropbox, so it would be a hassle for them to sign up right now. Just some extra info I thought might be helpful to anyone reading this...

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August 18th edit: I use Dropbox ALL the time! Seriously. I have a personal account and a teaching account. Obviously, the teaching account gets used a lot more frequently. But this is only HALF the stuff I've uploaded on there


and I've still only used 15% of my free storage! (And this picture isn't including all the SUB-FOLDERS I've created. Seriously, this is an organizer's DREAM.) Check it out!!