Need help sharing lab data generated from many sources

There are many great ways for students to collect and produce data, graphs, pictures and the like to show the results of a science lab or project. Students still make observations and measurements by hand but we also have electronic lab sensing equipment and software that produce good data tables and graphs of the data. Now there are inexpensive apps that use a smartphone's camera, accelerometers, timing components and microphones to produce data for a whole host of experiments.

My biggest issue is how to share the data students collected with all the different file formats these pieces of equipment produce.

As seamless as technology should work, it isn't seamless. Using the scanner and printer feature allows me to convert the many different data formats into reliably supported file formats like gifs, and pdfs. It takes away a big headache when technology does not cooperate, files get lost and students are absent.

These files can be uploaded and shared with students through Google drives and apps that we have adopted at our school. Making the information available and using the school's chrome books levels the playing field between students that have computers and reliable internet and others that do not. All this goes beyond the regular science classroom work and helps their technical writing skills and their ability to use and operate in a technology connected network. As inexpensive as this printer is and as simple as its function here, it makes that big of a difference.