Teacher needing easy way to retrieve student files
August 1st, 2013
I’m a teacher whose school I.T. staff is either unable or unwilling to set up a network where kids in the computer lab can save their work to a shared drive. If I was to evaluate my kids work, I need to go around to every computer and save each of their work to a usb drive. It is a waste of time.
I’m wondering if people know a program that could easily solve this problem. I was going to install dropbox on all the computer lab computers under the same account, so they could just drop their work in there, but I could only install dropbox under the administrator accounts, not the student guest accounts.
Are there any programs that work like dropbox that can me easily installed to all accounts on a computer?
Filezilla FTP would be a free option. Install the server software to the admin machine with the shared drive. Install the client software to each lab computer. On the Server machine you just need to allow the filezilla server.exe through the firewall. In the admin interface you could setup each student with their own log in that points to their own folder on the shared drive. They would just connect the client to the admin machine’s internal network address. Also, they would need read/write permission set in the admin interface for their respective folders.
I can tell you why… it’s because of security. If you implement what you want, any student could claim his turned in work was compromised and was not what he originally sent. The IT people will not do anything that might allow the “cute little kiddies” a possible route to the administration side. By forcing you to grab each file from each “station” there can be no compromise unless YOU allow it to happen.
You are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Try office 365
I have a friend that uses Google. I think it’s in their “Groups” section.
Used for sharing docs. etc.
Use skydrive and set the folder they will upload the files from as view only and not allow editing so none can edit the files and mess other kids work.
Skydrive is browser based so no need to install anything just bookmark the site on each pc and show them what they need to do after they are done.
File a complaint to your IT department.
1xaris replied: Use skydrive and set the folder they will upload the files from as view only and not allow editing so none can edit the files and mess other kids work.
Skydrive is browser based so no need to install anything just bookmark the site on each pc and show them what they need to do after they are done.
Touché.
With an internet connection. Tell all students to create a google email account.
Documents can be created and shared through here. I used this as i was studying.
Another option is a NAS box. Requires minimal knowledge. A few tutorials online and you are sorted. The most difficult part would be mapping a network location for easier access for the students.
Also the IT staff need to stop being lazy. For the best benefit for the students a great IT system is essential.
Thanks for all the great suggestions. I’ll look into them and will definitely choose one of the options.
I’m only an elementary teacher, so I’m not too concerned with kids crying foul. I like to make them create powerpoints, work with microsoft publisher etc….
E-mail accounts is tough, because some parents don’t want their kids to have e-mail addresses
IT isn’t the greatest because it’s in a SE Asian country.
You can create an email account(kids account) and login from that on all computers so they will not need to create an email or have one.
jelliott1983 replied:
[..] I'm only an elementary teacher [..]
When I read this I really had to laugh alot, I couldnt stop myself..
Do you mind if I ask how did you (as a elementary school teacher) ended up here?