Box.net
Box.net is a site that I learned about last year when my husband bought a netbook and was given a free subscription. Upon looking at the site and all it had to offer I quickly realized what a powerful tool it is.
At first my thought was to use it to “transport” documents from my home computer to my school computer and visa versa. However, once I really started playing around I saw how I could easily incorporate Box.net into my students lives.
Yes, Box.net is a wonderful repository for documents you would like to be able to access from any computer, but more importantly it is a wonderful way to give students access to documents, thereby saving you from standing at the copy machine during your lunch break. I can’t tell you how much time I have saved by allowing students to download docs using Box.net.
Box.net makes it uber easy to upload documents. With the free version you are given a gigabit of storage (more than enough to accomplish the simple tasks you will use it for), and so far I have not found a document type that it would not accept.
In addition to their other cool features, like online workspaces, they have an extra cool feature: a widget that you can add to your website. Check-out the one I have added with my OneNote notebooks (see my OneNote post if you don’t know what OneNote is. Remember, you have to have OneNote installed to use these. Also, I am in the process of updating them and hope to have them complete by September, so check back!). In addition there is an iPhone app, which is always a super plus in my book.
So whether you have a website, no website, use it for students or not, you really should click on over to Box.net. At minimum you will find a great site that you can use as a document repository.
