Category Archives: file storage

college planning, file storage, organization, parenting

Necessary tech gadgets for students going to college

 

The days of being able to pass your classes with only a pen and a notebook have long passed.  Today, many colleges mandate that you need to have certain materials like laptop computers in order to just sign up for courses.  There are five necessary tech gadgets that you have to have if you want to graduate on time with good grades.

Laptop Computers

tech gadgetsWith many courses taking place online in today’s universities, it is more important than ever to be connected with your class and classmates.  Laptop computers not only allow you to connect to online databases like the popular Blackboard system, but also to email teachers and other students in order to get information about the next class assignment or the big final.  If you need to work in a team on a project, you will have to coordinate schedules and make plans for each step of the way.

Some courses require using specific software: a foreign language class, for instance, will require that you download the voice tools and letter commands in order to complete assignments in a different tongue.  With a good deal of research taking place online, furthermore, access to the Internet at all times is crucial, especially when partaking in an online degree .

Laser Printer

It used to be possible to turn in assignments on scratch paper or by a living hall’s typewriter.  Today, however, each student needs to have the ability to print out materials in color.  Complex graphics may be necessary for a PowerPoint presentation or from a picture taken off the Internet.  Having a standard printer may not be satisfactory for an assignment.  Spending a lot of money on the university printers, furthermore (who may charge as much as a quarter per page) means that buying a printer will soon allow the purchase to pay for itself.

Flash Drives

Whether you need to transfer notes or entire papers to and from, a flash drive allows you to convert digital into physical and back again.  Once you have an assignment, put it on your flash drive and you can have a reliable backup or share it with classmates.  In the event that a computer crashes, is corrupted, or is even stolen, you will be able to keep all the vital information on a flash drive and turn in that assignment without having to re-type dozens of pages.  In addition to papers or PowerPoint slides, you can move movies and music on a flash drive to better impress your friends.

Smart Phone

A text-only phone may be a bit cheaper, but will leave you well behind if there are specific applications that can help you achieve success in your class.  With a smart phone, you can take pictures, connect to the Internet, check email, and quickly look up saved information — as well as talk and text with your connections.  Whether a course updates information on Twitter or whether there is a physics app that will help you through intense calculations, a smart phone is a crucial tool for surviving the rigors of college.

LiveScribe

For those who still want or need to take notes the old fashioned way, LiveScribe is the modern version of shorthand.  You can put down information with the pen and then connect it to a computer.  The system automatically transcribes written words into digital documents, so that you can email your notes or check them against a textbook.  Better still, the audio record system will let you compare the notes that you have written against what the professor actually said in lecture class so that there is no worry about missing the small details that come up on tests.

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Author Bio

Ryan Ayers is a writer who creates informative articles in relation to education. In this article, he describes a few gadgets for college students and aims to encourage further study with an Online Masters of Education.

college planning, file storage, organization

Tech essentials for your college-bound student’s dorm room

images-2When you send your student off to college, you will no doubt equip him with the tech essentials you assume he needs. A decent PC or Mac setup for his dorm room is a must so that he can do homework and write papers, and a printer goes along with the package. Of course, you probably also want to provide him with a webcam so that you can stay in touch via video chats on Skype. And for these basic purposes a laptop will work just as well with the added bonus of portability. Plus, your student can save some space by storing it in a drawer when not in use.

But while this type of hardware is certainly handy, it won’t come close to providing for the many technological needs of the modern student. So here are just a few other crucial pieces of tech you might want to consider sending along with your child when he leaves for college.

  1. Clocky Robotic Alarm. If your teen has trouble waking up even when you’re shaking him and pulling off the covers, then you might be a bit nervous about his chances of getting to class on time, making a good impression on his professors, and soaking up all the information he needs to pass his classes. But there is a solution out there that could help: the Clocky Robotic Alarm. This ingenious and dastardly invention is meant to get users up and moving, and it does so by running away with the alarm going off so that anyone who wants it to stop blaring must get up and chase it. Thanks to two wheels and the ability to change direction, this device should help even the deepest of sleepers to get up on time.
  2. Portable hard drive. Most kids are media hounds, soaking up music, books, movies, and TV shows, and since you don’t want them cluttering up their computer hard drive with anything besides classwork, a portable hard drive could provide the solution that lets your student store his favorite movies, his music collection, and even his textbooks in one place for easy recall.
  3. Noise cancelling headphones. Living in close quarters with another student will be made no easier by a roommate that snores or refuses to turn down the volume on a movie. So if your student wants to preserve the peace and catch a few zees in the process, noise cancelling headphones are essential to his sanity.
  4. Smartphone. Aside from the ability to call home, smartphones can provide students with a slew of mobile solutions. This general usefulness could manifest through the ability to set up a WiFi hotspot from anywhere. But students are more likely to enjoy the many amazing apps that allow them to access files saved in cloud storage (like Dropbox), take notes in class (Evernote), and manage their schedule (iStudiez Pro), just for example.
  5. Tablet. There’s really no better tech tool on the market today for the average college student than a tablet. It can act as a multimedia device, allowing your student to download and access movies, music, and even textbooks. It can handle the many tasks associated with computing (file creation, email, even faxes via a service like www.onlinefaxservice.com). And of course, front and rear-facing cameras will let him talk with you face-to-face, as well as capture his time on campus through pictures and videos that will jog his memory in years to come.

 

file storage, Guest Posts, online learning

Cloud storage for your student

shutterstock_97246499January is the month to start those college preparations for your seniors who are looking towards college in the fall. While you are waiting for those all-important college acceptance notifications, you can use the time to make some early preparations. Part of the college preparation process involves technology: laptops, iPads, smartphones, and cloud storage.

We all hear how technology is changing the very nature of how we do business. New devices and applications are making file transfer and communication more efficient at a very rapid pace. Business environments are relying more and more on digitized methods, so much so that many are even prioritizing Internet security through companies like Share File. But what we don’t hear as much about, is how technological developments can benefit people outside of the world of business, and primarily, students.

Of course, to some extent the benefits of technology for students are clear – every student can make use of a laptop, tablet, smart phone, etc. However, there are some newer developments that you may be very interested in exploring as a parent. For example, consider cloud storage systems, which have been implemented on a broad basis and can make your student’s life easier, and his or her work more secure.

These days, an enormous percentage of work in college environments is done electronically. Simply put, it is quicker to type a paper and save it on a computer than to write one and file it away physically. But, this same convenience also exposes students’ work to a number of potential vulnerabilities. Here are a few that just about every student has experienced at one time or another:

    • Loss – If a student saves a paper on an external hard drive, a USB drive, or even a computer itself, and then loses that object, the paper is simply gone. Professors are often somewhat intolerant of these sorts of issues, and lost content is usually beyond recovery, which means this can be a disastrous problem on multiple levels.
    • Damage – Similarly, if any electronic system on which a student has saved data, a paper, notes, etc. were to be damaged, that content may simply be inaccessible. This can be a major setback in your student’s studies.
    • Malfunction – Finally, the devices on which students traditionally save their work can also be prone to random malfunctions. If a student’s computer freezes just before he or she planned on printing out or sending a paper, there is serious risk that the assignment will end up being late!

For most students, these problems are uncommon. However, the do occur, at some point, for just about everyone, and the consequences can be extremely unfortunate. Cloud storage technology, however, solves each of the potential problems listed previously, by providing students with an external, digital storage source that can be accessed from just about anywhere.

With a cloud storage system, students can save notes, papers, research, and other files to their cloud, and then access it from a variety of devices – laptops, smart phones, school desktops, etc. This means that if a single device fails, the student’s files are still safe and accessible via the cloud. And, given the increasing use of technology in school work, this is extremely valuable to the modern student.

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Today’s guest post contribution was from Jason Saunders, a blogger and freelance writer. He contributes to a number of sites on topics relating to technology and its impact on the world of business.