Week 4 Essential Question: How can I use tools "in the cloud" to easily manage and deliver feedback to my students?

First of all, I would like to share my frustrating experience that I recently had with iCloud using my iPhone 4.  I still am a beginner user of iPhones and wanted to switch my phone to the iPhone 4s.  I backed up my phone to my computer and restored the 4s from the backup and thought that all was fine and dandy.  My daughter took my older phone and switched out the contacts to the ones she had on her sim card.  Then all of a sudden, poof, my contacts disappeared and were replaced with hers.  The phone was changing in front of me and I called in a panic her to tell her to stop making changes.  After continuous restores and frustrating hours, I still could not figure out that the changes were now saved in the iCloud and did not know what to do.  I turned off iCloud backup and decided that I did not like iCloud.  I now know that I could go online and make the changes there.  This is probably why I am feeling apprehensive about learning all theses new tools.  Too much frustration when there is not an expert at my side to show me the ropes.

I have not used any tools in the cloud with my students, but have had some experience with a previous class with Dr. Mary Lee Graham, where I turned in a couple of assignments using Dropbox.  Although I already had an account set up, I was not aware of the sharing features that Dropbox makes possible.  I first heard about Dropbox from a colleague in September 2012, and I thought it was just a storage space on the Internet that I could access from any computer.  I only recently wondered how my teacher was able to gain access to my Dropbox assignments.  This week’s essential question gave me a chance to explore and learn more about using Dropbox as a delivery and feedback tool.  I now have accounts with my sister and my daughter and am excited about the possibilities that it offers if I needed to communicate with students.  I even tested out the dropvox feature, which allowed me to record and place it right into the dropbox folder.  I can see the many possibilities that these features can bring into feedback on assignments or when students may have questions.  Dropbox is a free cloud service with up to 5GB of free document storage, but the option to purchase more storage is available.  No more need to worry about carrying around a flash drive and all you need is access to the Internet.

More about the cloud service Dropbox can be found at the following site:

http://plpnetwork.com/2012/08/10/dropbox-a-superb-classroom-tool/

Another tool in the cloud that I found interesting is Evernote.   According to Wikipedia, Evernote is, “a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook. Evernote supports a number of operating system platforms.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evernote

Since students are continuously on the go and have access to the Internet, the possibilities of what cloud computing has to offer makes sense.  Teachers can access student work from anywhere and they do not need to carry around a pile of assignments to provide feedback.

The diigo link for references for assn 4 can be found at:

https://www.diigo.com/list/dmhale23/week-4-how-can-i-use-tools-in-the-cloud-to-easily-manage-and-deliver-feedback-to-my-students

from anywhere and they do not need to carry around a pile of assignments can give feedback.