I use Dropbox almost every day and find it to be a very useful tool for accessing files from multiple computers. I was excited to read about the Dropbox integration with Moodle, but apparently I didn't read the details very closely. I'm not sure that there ever was a reason to use the Dropbox repository feature on our site, given the limitations that it has.
There are a number of steps involved in setting up the Dropbox repository, but once you've done that, you can access Dropbox from within Moodle to add files to a class. Problem number 1 is that you can only access 1 Dropbox account per site. In my case, I overlooked that limitation since it was my own Dropbox account that I was accessing. Not very useful for anyone else. The second limitation is that you can only copy files from Dropbox and you can only do it one file at a time. The dialog box that shows up when you access Dropbox give you the choice of copying the file or linking to it. Of course, linking to it implies that you could avoid filling up your class with lots of large files by linking to them in Dropbox. No such luck. It also implies that you could update the file in Dropbox and it would be updated in Moodle. That is also not the case.
Maybe I never understood how this was going to work, but it seems to me that there are no real benefits to using the Dropbox repository in Moodle unless you are running a Moodle site with 1 instructor or with a shared Dropbox account. If you are copying files into your class, it's much easier and faster to just use the drag and drop feature to add multiple files at the same time.
Maybe I never understood how this was going to work, but it seems to me that there are no real benefits to using the Dropbox repository in Moodle unless you are running a Moodle site with 1 instructor or with a shared Dropbox account. If you are copying files into your class, it's much easier and faster to just use the drag and drop feature to add multiple files at the same time.
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