Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas - Otixo

With an increase in the use of cloud storage, whether it be DropBox, Google Drive, Box, or SugarSync, organizing and remembering what files you saved where can be a daunting task.  Otixo is an App that provides users a way to access and organize their files across multiple cloud storage apps.  For personal use, Otixo is free, but has a limit of 2GB of Bandwidth; meaning the amount of network traffic or data transfer that you use while interacting with your files in Otixo.

The App also allows users to preview documents and images before opening them.  Users can copy and move files from one service to another without downloading to your computer. It's as easy as drag-and-drop.  One extra feature is called Spaces, which allows users to create a space for sharing files and folders with others.  These Spaces allow you to determine what access is provided to those that you collaborate with.  You can learn more by watching the video below.


If you find yourself using multiple Cloud based storage services, then Otixo is definitely worth looking into.

Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas - Day One - Edcanvas
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas - Day Two - Cubby
Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas - Day Three - NextUp

Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas - Cubby

Cubby, like its predecessors is a service that provides users storage in the clouds.  The service, created by Log Me In, does have potential to be another option for users looking for space to store documents in the cloud (At this point, it would seem one could have a cloud storage service for the various types of files they have; music, video, pdf, office, etc.).  Cubby currently offers 5GB for free, with the option of getting as much as 25 GB by receiving a 1 GB increase for each referral to the website with zero stipulations.  To see a comparison with other services, see the image capture below.

Cubby offers uses the ability to have a desktop, iOS, and Android App to help with the syncing of files across devices.  You can turn any folder into a cubby by dragging and dropping it, or right-clicking it (PC).  Like other cloud storage services, users also have the ability to share their folders and files with other users.  An extra level of security allows you to lock your folders as well.  To learn more, see their blog for more information.

When you use Cubby, you get unlimited versioning, so you can go as far back in time as necessary to find the file you need.  This feature can come in handy with so many different cloud storage options.

Apps for the 12 Days of Christmas Day One - EdCanvas

Shadow Drive - Social Cloud Drive

ShadowDrive is a web application that plans to make sharing content more social through various social networks.  It is still in development and plans are in place to have desktop, tablet, and mobile services available in October of 2013.  You can currently join for free by logging in through Facebook (Twitter in the future).  You can still use the service, but the space allotment is currently small, just 1GB.  What makes it worthwhile is that students probably won't be using a large amount of space in the first place.

With integration into Facebook, ShadowDrive would make it easy for students or teachers to have important files or documents easily made available to students and have it appear on their Facebook Timeline.  We are well aware that students are on Facebook.  Now, if you have a teacher page or classroom page you can have files made available to students.  Students that are working together on a project could also use the service to share pieces of a project, artifacts, pictures, videos, etc. 

Another benefit is that if your Facebook friends are using the App, then they would have access to the same files through the ShadowDrive site.  There are several security features in place to not only protect privacy, but also to protect the legality issues that might surface.  Like other applications on Facebook, you do have to provide permission to this App. 

Here is a video that introduces the product and provides more information.  If you are an active user of social media (Facebook and Twitter) in your classrooms with your students, this might be an app worth investigating. 



To learn more here are some other reviews of interest:

http://www.estartups.org/promoted/shadowdrive-the-social-cloud-storage-drive/

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/shadowdrive-a-web-service-to-easily-upload-files-share-with-online-friends/