Nancy had this post the other day …
NKDAVIDSON » Just a moment to vent!
I had to calculate grades today for midterms by hand with a calculator, one by one in each class period for 6 different subjects
I suggested that she should consider using a portable drive, and a simple spread sheet to create an electronic spread sheet so this doesn’t happen again. It occurs to me that everybody should be thinking about this idea.
First, while you all have your own computers at home (I think), you are probably dealing with “school computers” during the day. This can be a problem if you want to do some work on a shared computer, but keep it safe from tampering and/or unauthorized access. Often school/work computers are “locked down” for security reasons. One solution is to lug a laptop everywhere like I do, and the other is to just take your environment with you.
For less than $50 you can buy a USB drive (sometimes called a “jump drive” or a “key chain drive”) upon which you can install a portable computing environment. Once established, you take your drive, plug it into the PC in front of you, and all YOUR work stays on the USB drive. When you’re done, dismount the USB drive and tuck it in your pocket. All the work is saved there and you can then use it on any other PC. As we’re talking about toolboxes, what if every teacher had their own “system on a stick” and could work on any PC regardless of how “locked down” the system was?
See the Wikipedia overview of Portable Applications.
September 15th, 2006 at 10:02 am
I have a question about what you said. I have a USB drive. Are you saying that you can put the actual program on it and run the program on any compuer? I have never tried to do this but it would be a life saver.
September 15th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
Yup. See the material that I’ve linked in to find software that you might be able to use.
September 15th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
The system of a stick method has always worked for me. In some school environments the administration will not allow you to connect a laptop onto their system. Rather than lug my laptop to school, it was easier for me take a jump drive.
You also want to keep a copy of the jump drive contents on a PC somewhere. I’ve accidentally laundered my jump drives before and if they had been destroyed then I would have been SOL.
September 15th, 2006 at 11:04 pm
This site has a wonderful set of portable apps. I’ve been using them for several months on my MuVo TX FM and am very happy with what I can do straight from the portable drive.
http://portableapps.com/suite
September 23rd, 2006 at 2:29 pm
[...] I chose to write about Dr. Lowell’s post on my ‘gator’ about “Portability” which you can find at http://durandus.com/phaedrus/?p=31#more-31, about Jump Drives. I hadn’t had much experience with them until last Christmas when my brother gave me one. It was one of the best gifts ever! Instead of lugging disks or even my laptop around to send my info to other comps I just stick it in the side in the USB port and there all my info is right in front of me. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to use it right away and it sat in the box for months until one day I needed to save something and go out of town. My disks of course were more than likely going to get smashed in everything so I used the jump drive and was surprised that I was ready to go! How might jump drives be used online? Well that’s a tricky question since you have to have them with you but if you had the information right in your fingers you could quickly send it through email anywhere in the world and not even have your actual computer before you. Would it be good to use in a classroom? I think so…so many of our students are required to do portfolios and many often lose their disks many times. If a jump drive was available to say 3-4 students each and was kept by the teacher it would be a great way to access additional copies of their work and allow them to edit as well. If they wanted to keep their own as well they can easily be purchased for around 40-50 dollars. [...]