Directions: By definition, Emerging Technologies are becoming available all the time, with promising educational possibilities for the classroom and useful tools for your own productivity. Together, we will put together a collection of very brief reports on a variety of gadgets, one for each of you. Sources of information will be websites, blogs, videos, and other resources. This assignment will focus on gadgets and devices, rather than website resources.
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"1 TB External Hard Drives"
1. Name of Device: WD “My Passport” Portable Hard Drive (1TB)
2. Primary Source: CNET.com (click for video review)
3. Retail Price:
- Buydig.com: $149.00
- Beach Camera: $119.00
- Buy.com: $106.99
- Newegg.com: $109.99
- Amazon.com: $108.99
4.
Description:
Western Digital (WD) has made a name for themselves making external hard drives that are portable, durable, and reliable. The ‘My Passport’ series is designed to be highly portable and provide fast data transfer speeds. Because the My Passport is “bus powered,” meaning it has a single cable for both data and power, it is an attractive choice for laptop owners who need something that doesn’t have extra cables to fumble around with.
5.
Classroom Possibilities:
As we continue to innovate and integrate new technologies into the classroom, so too do our students continue to create more and more digital content that we must then collect. Some may argue against a portable hard drive in favor of a USB flash drive because they are small, cheap, and have average storage capacities. The downside of a USB flash drive is they are small (easy to loose), cheap (can break easily), and have average storage capacities (can’t handle a whole classroom of users). A My Passport drive was salvation for me when I assigned my students a project whose final product would be either a podcast or iMovie. These types of media love to eat up storage space, and when I multiplied that by 18-24 students in each of my eight academic blocks it was clear a USB flash drive just wasn’t going to cut it.
Another use to keep in mind is that of for teacher’s personal use in backing up critical files, projects, and other data. The common rule-of-thumb in the digital world today is to have three copies of all of your critical data: i.) on your local computer, ii.) on an external storage device, and iii.) in a virtual storage device (i.e. cloud-computing). As teachers create more media-rich and tech-heavy lessons and activities, they need storage to keep up with the size and complexity of these projects. Finally, both of the major manufacturers of computer operating systems, Apple and Microsoft, have provided built-in backup software into their OS’s that will automatically configure your external hard drive for automatic backups, with plans to provide procedures to destinations in the cloud soon.
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Screenshot:
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Additional Resources:
http://www.g-technology.com/
G-Technology provides storage solutions for Windows, Mac, and portable devices via USB 3.0, thunderbolt, and WiFi.
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2358135,00.asp
From PC Magazine, this article walks you through different drive types, connector and cable options, and how much attention you should pay to drive speed.
http://desktop-external-hard-drive-review.toptenreviews.com/
Top-Ten Reviews provides a side-by-side comparison of 10 of the most popular hard drives currently on the market based on categories such as price, performance, security, ease of use, and design.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/CategoryIntelligenceArticle.aspx?articleId=200
This article from Newegg provides a guide for buying the right hard drive for your needs.
http://peripherals.about.com/od/removablestorage/bb/BYBExternalHardDrive.htm
This article from About.com covers hard drive types, size, security, and speed with major emphasis put on why it's important to backup your important data on a regular basis.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/features/backup-and-restore
This page contains an introductory video tutorial on how to take advantage of the automatic backup features found in Microsoft’s Windows 7 operating system. (0:53)
http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics
This page contains a video tutorial guide on how to use the application Time Machine which comes pre-installed on all of Apple’s desktop and laptop computers. (2:47)
