Three Different Ways Student Can Save Files, Part 2, Email

As I’m heading to BlogHer this week, I will be featuring a 3 part article from BitMoms and BitDefender. As a BitMom, I will be featuring monthly articles written by BitDefender experts. Part 1 featured USB drives.

August signifies the winding down of summer and the fresh school year.  This year as you shop for back to school items, check your family computer to ensure that your antivirus software is current and can safeguard your machine from potential viruses that can come from opening infected files at home and school.

These days, students have a myriad of ways they can create and save documents to be accessed in multiple locations but each has its benefits and risks.  Here’s a quick run down of the top 3 ways students save files along with the pros and cons of each.

2. Emailing assignments

These days it seems like most kids, even in the upper elementary grades, have an email address.  Email accounts are free thanks to Yahoo, Gmail, and many other internet service providers.

Pro: A student can work on an assignment at home and attach it to an email to themselves which can be opened at school if your school allows student use of email for class work.  This serves as a free and easy way to ensure that documents are accessible for working on them at home, school, or wherever your child has an internet connection.

Cons: Your home computer may run a different version of software than your child’s school.  Having different versions of software, such as Microsoft Office, can make it impossible to open documents at school if you have a newer version installed at home.  To alleviate this problem, teach your child how to do a “save as” to save their document in a compatible file format that can be read at school.   Incompatible file formats that make documents unreadable at school can be frustrating for children if they want to add last minute touches to their homework at school but can’t open their assignment.  Also, there is a high risk of viruses attaching themselves to Microsoft Word documents thanks to macros that are written into the language of the program.  To avoid this turn on Macro Virus Protection and make sure your antivirus software is current and always scanning in the background.

Tomorrow in part 3, we will look at Google Docs as a way to share documents.

This article was provided as exclusive content by BitDefender because of my role as a BitMom Blog Network Member.  No compensation was received for sharing this post however; BitMoms is providing me with a blog conference stipend and other materials to help me facilitate sharing topics of internet safety and security with my readers and through the BitMom Community.

About BitDefender®- BitDefender is the creator of one of the industry’s fastest and most effective lines of internationally certified security software. Every day, BitDefender protects tens of millions of home and corporate users across the globe — giving them the peace of mind of knowing that their digital experiences will be secure. More information about BitDefender and its products are available on the company’s website.