Prepare to say goodbye to Dropbox. Beginning this fall term, Choate is encouraging students and faculty to use OneDrive, a cloud storage service by Microsoft that allows users to easily create, edit, and sync files.
The switch to OneDrive benefits the school in several ways. Last year, Choate moved its email service, Microsoft Exchange, from the servers on campus to cloud storage in Office 365. In order to integrate the school on a single, unified platform, the Information Technology Services (ITS) Department recommended the use of OneDrive. The platform boasts 1 terabyte of disk space — compared to the 2GB and 25GB disk space of its rivals, Dropbox and Google Drive, respectively — as well as a free package of OneDrive for all Choate faculty and staff. Mr. Andrew Speyer, Director of ITS, commented about the shift, “We thought that it was a necessary step to support the use of OneDrive, a platform ready for its time.”
The school has endorsed similar platforms in the past. “We’ve endorsed a file sharing and storage system called Socrates for years. While Socrates still functions, its disk space and loading time are incomparable with OneDrive, which operates on cloud storage. Socrates, on one hand, depends on servers here on campus while OneDrive operates on cloud storage. OneDrive offers a smoother experience, whether you’re on campus, off campus, or on the other side of the world,” explained Mr. Speyer.
In order to get students acquainted with the new platform, the ITS department organized multiple technology orientations at the start of the year. During those orientations, students learned about the fundamentals of OneDrive and Office 365, Choate’s newest technological adoptions. Hoping to help students and faculty get used to OneDrive, Mr. Speyer also referenced numerous tutorials available on Lynda.com that will facilitate the use of the new system. The school also encouraged teachers to incorporate OneDrive in their classrooms. The faculty members also learned about these new technological tools in information sessions during the spring term and emails over the summer
Choate also intends for these new technology adoptions to be useful outside of the classroom. For example, club leaders have the ability to create groups on Office 365 to accommodate their club meetings and activities. The group function also comes with space on OneDrive, club e-mail accounts, and an online calendar.
So far, however, students and faculty around campus have mixed feelings about OneDrive. Despite school’s encouragement, many faculty members have not yet used OneDrive in the classroom. Mr. David Loeb, an English teacher and a member of the Academic Technology Committee, is one of them. “I haven’t used OneDrive in any of my classes yet, because I was told by the school that everything I wanted wasn’t necessarily ready. Although I am very supportive of the school’s decision to endorse OneDrive, it’s not quite where I need it to be at the moment. I gave up on it very quickly.” He continued, “It was the night before classes were starting when OneDrive presented me with some obstacles that Dropbox did not, like the difficulty of sharing a document that was created on an iPad. Once the kinks are sorted out, I’d be more than happy to use it.”
Alan Luo ’18 pointed out, “I don’t think it is really necessary for the school to encourage the sole use of OneDrive. I don’t see a problem in letting teachers do their own thing, since most of them only use Google Drive or Dropbox. But if the school had to endorse a single system, I’d rather recommend Google Drive as a better alternative. The fact that the majority of Choate students use Macs but OneDrive isn’t compatible is just ridiculous. There is no Finder integration for OneDrive.”
Zev Nicolai-Scanio ’18 offered a different perspective, “I think OneDrive, out of all the other potential platforms, is a very solid choice. But the more important thing than the specifics of a given platform is the idea that the school is becoming unified on a sole platform. That’s definitely going to be a huge plus, especially if you have students coming to class with all of the materials that they are saving, sharing, and on which they are collaborating, stored on a single platform.”
Regarding these concerns about OneDrive, Mr. Speyer responded, “OneDrive and Office 365 is Microsoft’s counter to Google Apps. Obviously, Google Apps is much more mature at this point, as it is a platform that has been out for much longer. So if you’re comparing OneDrive and Google Apps today, then yes, I think Google Apps is further along with the development and ease of use.”
He continued, “But will OneDrive catch up? Time will tell, but it’s used heavily in high schools and universities all over the world. The real power of OneDrive is its connection to the Microsoft Office suites and Office 365. I believe in the near future, Office 365 will catch up, and even surpass the limitations of Google Apps or Dropbox. There still are some clunky pieces for Mac users, including the file-syncing app that is still in the beta version, but I’m hoping within six to eight months, Microsoft will make the changes they promised, and make the Mac user experience much smoother.”
Maybe you won’t have to say goodbye to Dropbox quite yet.
