Day 12 – OneDrive: Your Hard Drive in the Cloud
09/30/2014
30 Days with Office 365 for Educators - Day 12
With some of the necessary introductions out of the way it is now time to introduce some of the more innovative and game changing possibilities that Office 365 offers educators.
In previous posts we have discussed the Outlook Web App (OWA) for email and some of the basics for setting up Contacts.
Email and Contacts are the foundation of Office 365 but it is the other cloud services where Office 365 really shines. Office 365 is so much more than email.
OneDrive is one of the services that can change the way you approach your teaching. Microsoft’s OneDrive now stands in the marquee position for its cloud strategy.
Think of OneDrive as your hard drive in the Cloud.
OneDrive is an online storage space for your files. You can store Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files to OneDrive just like you do your local hard drive. You can also store audio, pictures, video. and music files so this gives you great flexibility for educational use.
OneDrive was formerly called SkyDrive by Microsoft so if you are searching for information about Office 365 you may run across the SkyDrive name, just realize that OneDrive is the new name going forward.
Storing content in the cloud offers the possibility of being accessed from any Internet connected device. This ubiquitous access requires a shift in the computing paradigm we have become accustomed to over the years. This access also offers tremendous opportunity to change our teaching and learning workflows. It allows educators to do things that were very difficult to do before cloud computing technologies, if not impossible.
Here are just a few things to consider:
Storing files to OneDrive allows you to access your files from anywhere by signing into your Office 365 account. All you need is a computer (or mobile phone) with Internet access. This ability to have one central storage space for my files has changed my workflow more than any other. OneDrive has allowed me to become a digital nomad and have access to my files from anywhere I have an Internet connection.
Accessing your files from anywhere is one thing but you can also selectively “Share” your files with others.
OneDrive allows the individual user to be in control of all files within their Office 365 account, including the ability to share with others. This sharing ability will be a game changer for new users of Office 365 and opens the door to increasing your teaching productivity and effectiveness when working with others.
But, with great power comes great responsibility.
ALWAYS SIGN-OUT of your Office 365 account when finished using it.
Users of Office 365 will need to use judgment about what to store in the cloud and what is acceptable to share with others via the cloud. Be sure to always protect confidential and private information. Not all data will be appropriate to store in the cloud and many IT departments offer on-premises servers to store and protect sensitive information. Each organization will have policies and procedures to ensure data privacy.
Yesterday I wrote about new beginnings. As we convert faculty and staff to Office 365 new users will be given a blank slate with OneDrive. It will be up to new users how you organize their online storage space but I highly recommend that new users have some type of system in place.
I like keeping my information organized by academic year and I created a folder called AY20142015 to store ALL my work that I do for the Academic Year 2014-2015 inside this folder. I will make appropriate subfolders within the AY20142015 folder to further organize my work.
If you are interested in how I organize my work I created two YouTube videos some time ago explaining the benefit of organizing your folder structure by Academic Year. The YouTube videos are for my local hard drive but I use a similar system with OneDrive.
It will not take long at all to get many, many files stored on OneDrive. Some people say they can just do a search and find the file they want but what happens when you have two, three, or four or more years of files all mixed together?
Having a folder structure and naming convention will greatly enhance your productivity over the years.
Everything is best in the beginning.
Keep on Learning,
Tom Grissom, Ph.D.
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http://eiu.edu/itc
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