This is an incredibly useful personal application. But how does it help out students? There are two features that really come in handy. The first is the ability to make any file or folder in DropBox a public link. This makes sharing files a breeze.
Second, thanks to some clever coding by Amit Banerjee, whose work I found via the excellent Lifehacker blog, you can allow students to upload their work. Follow the directions on the site listed above. It should be noted that you need a web server to upload 2 files to; if you have your own website, you probably have a web server.
I made a few changes to make it work better for me. Instead of just linking to it, I like to keep students in one place when on the class website. For example, I would rather embed a video than send them to a video site. In the same vein, I made the dimensions smaller so that it could fit on my blog using the <iframe> command. I also changed the background color to match that on my blog.
In my DropBox, I made a student work folder. Now, whenever students want to give me something, I just have them upload it to the Student Work folder in my DropBox. To make it even more useful, I have the students using a naming convention that makes it very easy for me: period-name-assignment. For example, 3-Bedell-Journal. This way, on any of my computers, I have all of my students’ work organized by period, then by last name, then by assignment.
I can then even leave feedback on the files and send them back to the students with a shareable link. It takes a little tinkering, but it takes an excellent tool and makes it even more useful for students.
Here is an example of what it could look like.
