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Using Drop.io to Share Files with Your Students

Posted on 24. Feb, 2009 by Cap'n Ko in Technology, Websites

I absolutely love simple, technology-based solutions to simple, irritating problems. In this day and age, it doesn’t matter if you are an online or offline teacher. You’ll need to share files with your students via the net. One solution is to send e-mails out to you students, and attach the readings or handouts you want to get to them. The main problem with this, though, is that if you made a mistake, or want to add more files later, you have to send another e-mail with new files. If you’re teaching online, often times you won’t even have the option to attach files if you’re using the messaging system of an online learning site. Luckily, Drop.io solves most of these problems in a slick, simple interface. First, let’s go through a quick “how-to” on using Drop.io, and then we’ll talk about its implementation in the classroom.

Sharing Files

Sharing Files on Drop.io couldn’t be easier. First, visit drop.io (kind of a weird URL, right?).

You’ll have the option of naming your “drop.” As long as you name it something over seven characters, you won’t have to pay anything for it. If you want to purchase a drop (for a shorter name + more options), you can do so at a reasonable rate of $10 or more, depending on the options and disk space you want. Most likely, for everything you do, you’ll never need to purchase a premium code. Here, we’re going to click “add files.”

Choose the files you want to upload. You can hold down Ctrl (Cmd on the Mac) or Shift to choose multiple files, as I’m doing in the image above. After you select the files you want to upload, click the big red “Drop it” button.

The files will start uploading. You have a 100mb of space, which should be enough for any teachers’ needs, unless you’re doing a lot of video. Let’s take a look at my pictures from the cat show (one of the weirdest events I’ve been to in my life, by the way).

There they are, available for the world to see! In fact, anyone can go see and download these pictures (don’t know why you’d want to) by visiting the drop I set up. Don’t worry, paranoid friends, there definitely are options that make it so you can privatize your drop, and only let certain people in (who have the key / password).

Using Drop.io In Your Classroom

There are several functions on drop.io that make it a perfect candidate for classroom file sharing. Of course, it’s very easy to send a drop.io link to your students, where you’ve uploaded all the readings, etc. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s a few more things that make drop.io great.

Your Students can drop Files into your Drop, too

You can simplify the “turning-in” process by having students upload their papers, stories, videos, or whatever all to one drop. You can also use this as a way to “share papers” for peer-reviews, and the like. This gets all the papers into one, easily accessible place. If you’re worried, you can set a password on the Drop, and share that password with your students.

You Can Add Files Over Time

You aren’t, of course, limited to one drop and one drop only. You can continue to add more files as time goes by, so as you assign reading homework (for example), you can upload it to the drop. If the student ever wants to go back and read something from earlier, it’s right there as well. Students even have the option to subscribe to a drop via RSS, which means they can get updates as they are made available!

Great When You Have a lot of Students

If you have a lot of students, or are teaching big groups online, Drop.io will be a Godsend. I use drop.io for all my classes, and make the link available for my students. They can get all the information from a class via a single link I send out. When I’m reteaching a particular class, I can just make changes to the files that need changing, and share the same drop with the students taking the repeat class.

You can Make People Pay To Access Your Drop

Most teachers out there probably won’t use this feature, though I could see this being more applicable in online teaching. After a lesson (perhaps a free one?), a teacher could theoretically charge some money for the worksheets, readings, etc., that students can use after the class to study further, or solidify their knowledge. Personally, I probably wouldn’t do this, but the option is there, and it’s definitely cool enough to be worth mentioning. If you want to do this, you’ll have to get yourself an Amazon Payment Business Account.

I’m pretty sure there are more uses than the ones I talked about above, but that should get you started. Drop.io is simple but feature rich, and a lot of its use is limited only by your creativity. Actually, here is a sample drop for a fictitious teacher that Drop.io created for all of you to enjoy. Yep, even drop.io thinks that educators should be using their service.

Do any of you use Drop.io in your classes? Anything that I’m missing here, that Drop.io can do for educators? I’m really excited to learn about how you’ve used it. I use Drop.io all the time, but I’m almost sure I’m not using it to its full potential. I look forward to learning from you as well!

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Tags: dropio, Technology, Tools, website