The start of school typically means changes to our technology tool-kit and this year is no exception.  With the advent of our 1:1 initiative, several new tools are available that can benefit students and teachers alike.  Although formal training sessions and support materials will be provided, I’d like to highlight some of the major resources at our disposal.  Since each of these topics deserves its own post, today I will briefly feature iFolder and address the others in the near future.

iFolder: Backup and Remote Access

Remote access and data backup are two of the most important issues in any mobile environment.  Network shares, drive mapping, and VPN can be cumbersome, however, and systems that don’t work smoothly won’t get used.  Novell’s iFolder system offers an elegant, free alternative.  As described on their website, “iFolder is a simple and secure storage solution that can increase your productivity by enabling you to back up, access and manage your personal files-from anywhere, at any time. Once you have installed iFolder, you simply save your files locally-as you have always done-and iFolder automatically updates the files on a network server and delivers them to the other machines you use.”

Once configured, any local folder can be converted to an iFolder.  Fom this point, there is no learning curve; users simply work with their files and synchronization occurs automatically.  Unlike some backup solutions, iFolder only syncs the data that has been changed, and users can create and share folders with each other.  If disaster should strike and a computer needs to be reimaged/replaced, the iFolder data will download to the new machine upon startup (having experienced this myself, I must say the process couldn’t be any easier).

It Only Works If You Use It

Although iFolder is a nearly fool-proof system that even our youngest students can use, it only works when files are saved in the correct location.  As we migrate to this new tool, we must remind our students (and ourselves) to put data where it belongs.  Losing important files is a hard lesson that nobody needs to learn!

Posted: 08|12|08 at 10:00 am. Filed under: 1:1, Applications.
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