I'm a junior high technology teacher in Newfoundland and Labrador.  We had a professional development day today.  I was responsible for delivering a one hour session about technology.  It was a last minute thing.  I was planning to cover homework pages and, in particular, creating links and adding files for students.

The pd day was moved up a week and I was given short notice.  I was also doing it in another school where we would not have access to our school network and software.  No problem.  I took advantage of the circumstances to illustrate how teachers can use drops or drop boxes in their courses.  

Here is the hand-out I created and gave out: {{file:906}}  

I started with an introduction and emphasized two reasons for using a drop:

• It allows students to submit assignments and projects over the web.  Large files still create problems when sending them via email.  I like the possibilty of students creating an electronic portfolio of their work throughout a course.
• Teachers can use drops to easily store and share files and notes with students over the web.  One of our teachers will often drop files created during class in the software, Notebook, which is used with Smartboards. 

Here is the Introduction I gave at the start of the session:

Using a drop for your courses

What is a drop?

• A drop is a space on the web where you can store and share files (e.g. pictures, video, audio, documents, …).
  
• It does not require you to register for an account.
  
• You control the access to the drop by setting the passwords for yourself as the Admin and for Guest which would be your students (Security).
  
• The drop has a web address which you use to access the drop. To find out more details visit the following links:
  
• How-to section provides video tutorials (http://drop.io/howto)
  
• Frequently Asked Questions (http://drop.io/faq)
• See the handout for this pd session.

I only had an hour and I wanted to give teachers a hands-on experience so it was very basic.  I had some positive feedback and I hope to follow-up in the Fall.  Please comment if you find this useful.