Backing up data

Over the years I’ve had two laptops die on me. Yes, I had backed them up – a few weeks previous to the crashes. But I still lost much data. Two students last semester had their flash drives toasted so that they could not get data off of them and they needed the data for their end of the course portfolio.

So let’s check: How often do you back up

Your computer?

Your files at school? (How often does the school back up student files?)

Your bookmarks if they are not online bookmarking?

Your wiki or blog- in case your provider does not back it up?

Your flashdrive?

Do you back up your information to at least two different storage device – perhaps an external harddrive and a DVD?

Do you store those backups in two different locations – one at home and one at work? Don’t keep both in the same location! The house of a person I know was destroyed in a fire and all of his multiple backups were destroyed.
Do you save critical files online such as in your Google docs or email them to yourself frequently?

How do you protect your valuable work?

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Not Really Web 2.0 Classroom Use

When is a Web 2.0 tool, not a Web 2.0 tool? The answer is when we use a Web 2.0 tool as a Web 1.0 tool. I hear of many schools that have blogs. Students post their ideas to the blog but they do not respond to each other. The blogs are closed to the class. They only blog during class time. I don’t see that as a Web 2.0 tool use.

Students use Google docs to share their documents for peer-review. Ok, they are sharing a document but how different is this than sharing a physical paper within the class? The sharing just allows the other person access to make comments. They could do it with email.

I see videoconferencing that is 85% lecture or demonstration. The students do a token activity. Is that an example of social sharing? Or is videoconferencing really a one-way tool to dispense information?

How do you use Web 2.0 tools in your classroom?