Managing files--including student papers--digitally has many advantages, but you still have to get them. If you use a CMS like Blackboard or Moodle, students can submit files that way, and if you have a Dropbox account, students can put things in a public folder, or use a service like
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Managing files--including student papers--digitally has many advantages, but you still have to get them. If you use a CMS like Blackboard or Moodle, students can submit files that way, and if you have a Dropbox account, students can put things in a public folder, or use a service like Send to Dropbox (covered previously).
For people who have a Google-centered workflow, or who use Google Docs as an external drive, a new service called GoFileDrop might be appealing. GoFileDrop is an add-on to Gmail that gets attachments out of your e-mail and directly into Google Docs.
Once you give GoFileDrop permission to write to your Google Docs account, it gives you a URL that you can forward to anyone who wants to send you a file. That URL gives the sender a browser-based upload page, which puts the file directly into your Google Docs. You get an e-mail notice that a file’s been received.
Here’s a video describing how it works:
GoFileDrop seems like a particularly good solution for receiving very large attachments. Having said that, it’s only free for 50mb, with per-gigabyte prices starting at £1.75 subsequently. (This is not a subscription: you pay for that amount of throughput, kind of like a pay-as-you-go phone.)
GoFileDrop has been around for a while for people with corporate Google accounts, but is now available to anyone with a Gmail account.
Do you have a favorite file dropbox service? Let us know in comments!
Photo by Flickr user easternblot / Creative Commons licensed
