September 12, 2012
Tech Tip #104: Need a File on Your iPad? Here’s an Easy Way
As a working technology teacher, I get hundreds of questions from parents about their home computers, how to do stuff, how to solve problems. Each Tuesday, I’ll share one of those with you. They’re always brief and always focused. Enjoy!
Q: I have a video on my classroom computer I want to use on my iPad. How do I do that?
A: There are ways to do that–email it to your iPad, open through DropBox–but those have issues:
- emailing requires extra steps and time you may not have
- many email accounts limit you to <10MB. What if a video file is larger?
- DropBox has limited space
- like email, you must put materials in DropBox to access them from there (In know–Duh, but that requires planning. What if your inquiry-driven class popped onto this topic on the fly?)
If you’re like me, anything to make your worker faster, easier, less steps is a good thing.
I use Carbonite to make data available to my iPad. Yes, Carbonite charges a fee because its primary service is as a back-up of your computer. I decided the cost was worth it to have an offsite automatic redundancy of the material that makes my life tick forward. I’ve used flash drives and CD’s and Windows built-in back-up, but nothing beats an autonomic tool.
So several years ago, I opted for Carbonite. One of the pluses is that you can access any data that is backed up from your computer’s C drive from anywhere as long as you have the User name and Password. That means when I’m at school and need a file I saved at home, it’s now available.
To access these same files from the iPad, all you have to do is install the Carbonite app, open it, and access the materials in your backed up drives. Everything opens–movies, Word Files, everything. Of course, you can’t edit them, but you can copy-paste.
My only experience is with Carbonite. Anyone have another back-up service that does that?
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Jacqui Murray is the editor of a K-6 technology curriculum, K-8 keyboard curriculum, creator of two technology training books for middle school and six ebooks on technology in education. She is the author of Building a Midshipman, the story of her daughter’s journey from high school to United States Naval Academy. She is webmaster for six blogs, an Amazon Vine Voice book reviewer, a columnist for Examiner.com, Editorial Review Board member for Journal for Computing Teachers, Cisco guest blog, Technology in Education featured blogger, IMS tech expert, and a bi-weekly contributor to Write Anything. Currently, she’s editing a thriller that should be out to publishers next summer. Contact Jacqui at her writing office or her tech lab, Ask a Tech Teacher.
