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[voxprincipalis]

Voxy, have you tried the MobileMe service (formerly .Mac)? I know it's not free, but it would solve a lot of problems for you. I've created a website for my husbands various classes (no HTML knowledge required) and it's really easy to use. It's $100 per year, and we've found it worthwhile. There are cheaper solutions, but I use so many of the MM's features beyond the website.

Really? I actually already have a MobileMe/.Mac account, but <is embarrassed> really only use it to sync my calendars and address books. Are you saying that, like Dorothy in Oz, I've had the tools with me all along and just need to click my heels together three times?

OH! Wait! I do use my iDisk. Are you telling me to use the public folder of my iDisk as a dropbox? (But if it's public, couldn't students then get to and possibly mess with one another's assignments?)

Or did you mean something else? How does a website tie into this? I am all curiosity.

VP

[balancing_act]

Voxy, have you tried the MobileMe service (formerly .Mac)? I know it's not free, but it would solve a lot of problems for you. I've created a website for my husbands various classes (no HTML knowledge required) and it's really easy to use. It's $100 per year, and we've found it worthwhile. There are cheaper solutions, but I use so many of the MM's features beyond the website.

Really? I actually already have a MobileMe/.Mac account, but <is embarrassed> really only use it to sync my calendars and address books. Are you saying that, like Dorothy in Oz, I've had the tools with me all along and just need to click my heels together three times?

OH! Wait! I do use my iDisk. Are you telling me to use the public folder of my iDisk as a dropbox? (But if it's public, couldn't students then get to and possibly mess with one another's assignments?)

Or did you mean something else? How does a website tie into this? I am all curiosity.

VP

Do you have iLife? It includes iWeb. MM is eliminating the iDisk website page, because with iWeb, no one uses the other anymore. I'm not sure if iWeb has a dropbox feature included in it, but it wouldn't be hard to find out. I have the '08 version but there are a lot of new features in the '09 version. I guess what I am thinking is that you could link the Dropbox application to a website that you make, thus keeping students more or less in one place.

I like the Dropbox application. As far as the iDisk as a dropbox, yes you can do that, but I don't know if they would then have access to one another's stuff. I suspect that you can control that. After all, it's your disk.

[tee_bee]

Except: the school email system (a) is sometimes buggy, and (b) does not allow university.edu addresses to send to non-university.edu addresses if you are not on campus.

Not trying to hijack your thread, but this has to be the weirdest e-mail system I have ever heard of (as I am winding my way through my third university...

It is a measure to prevent spammers from hijacking university accounts and mass emailing from them.

gmail: On another thread I brought up some of the hazards of gmail for university business. - DvF

I'll be reading DvF's posts soon. But for now, I think the gmail solution is sound. They allow for large file sizes (20 MB I think), the capacity of each account is pretty huge, and accessibility is good from just about anywhere with an internet connection. Gmail is my only email (I route all my Uni mail to it), but I need to see if I agree with DvF about the hazards.

[voxprincipalis]

Actually, I just realized a problem with Dropbox: it doesn't actually create a dropbox. I want a folder into which students can drop assignments and not see them again, like putting a letter into a US Mail box. Dropbox makes a shared folder which everyone can access and update. That's not what I need.

Moodle's "Advanced Uploading of Assignments" feature may work, but I don't think it will play nicely with the rest of my grading setup.

I hate Moodle.

VP

[voxprincipalis]

Aha! I think I have solved the problem and will use drop.io instead. They have a "hidden access" feature which basically does what I want: provides a place for students to upload content without being able to view, remove, or alter other content in the dropbox.

I may have to pay to upload for a larger amount of storage space, but that would be OK with me. Just so I find a way to make this impractically large class size work.

VP

[antiphon1]

Excellent! 

Incidentally, I'm also not a Moodle fan.  Moodle seems to make most processes twice as hard as necessary.