A teacher's Guide to Cloud Computing - part3

Part 3 - Using Cloud computing to benefit K - 12

According to InformationWeek. "Cloud computing promises to cut operational and capital costs, and more important, let IT departments focus on strategic projects instead of keeping the data center running."

In K-12 Schools, the benefits of cloud computing can greatly enhance the way student create documents and store their work. Let's look at six potential benefits for schools when the adopting this cloud computing model.

1. Reduced Costs. Since schools do not have to maintain the computers and programs in-house, the costs are lower. Software licensing fees do not have to be paid. Staffing for server maintenance, backups can be reduced.
2. Increased Storage. Schools have to limit the storage that students can access on the school servers. There is a finite amount of space on school-based file servers. With cloud computing, more space is readily available.
3. Highly Automated. Schools must constantly update software to keep pace with changes. Older versions of software that is installed on the school computers has to be updated to newer programs. Using an Internet-based, server the updating is done automatically. School personnel area no longer responsible for keeping software current. With the "Software stored on Local PC model", when a program enhancement comes out, the school is responsible for purchaing the upgrade, and then installing it on each computer. With the applications stored on a cloud server, this software updating is done automatically for the school
   
   
   
4. Flexibility. If the school wants to change the programs they are using, they can just sign-up with another service. They don't have to re-invest in new software and install it.
   
   
   
5. More Mobility. Students and staff can work on their document from anywhere there is an internet connection.
   
   
6. IT can shift focus. IT staff doesn't have to spend resources keeping server running.
   
   
   

So if this technology has all these benefits, how can we apply them to Schools?

Since Cloud computing is Internet based, you need to use a service provided by a third party. More and more companies are jumping into cloud computing, but there are still limited
options for schools. The most obvious place to start cloud computing in your school is with document creation and management.

There are two major companies providing “online document” services, Google and Zoho. As cloud computing becomes more prevalent, I’m sure this number will grow.

Google has gone out of their way to woo the Educational customer. They have provided a free google Document account for any school. The Google documents accounts comes with 500 free accounts for schools to give to their students and staff. Google turns off advertising for these school accounts.

Zoho also provides free accounts, but only for personal use. To create a group of accounts, you must purchase a plan. There have a discount for schools, but even with accounts as low as $5 per month, they can’t compete with the free model that Google offers.

So, the cloud computing model that I am exploring is with Google Apps (Applications). This platform is sponsored by Google and is being offered to Educational Institutions at no cost.

Since the platform is free, it can be set up at any school district without incurring a lot of expense. School can evaluate how the platform works without inventing any money. Google has put together a very good set of tools: e-mail, calendar, Web messaging, word processing, spreadsheets, and slideshow presentations. These applications take the place of Microsoft
Office which costs $350 per user for a corporate license and $49 per user for an educational license. Also, there's no need to back-up or transfer files from multiple computers.

There are other benefits to using Google docs that we haven’t explored yet. Google docs does allow students to store their work in the “clouds”, but there are other benefits as well.

Google points them out on their website:

• Documents are stored online. School do not have to invest in servers with large storage capacity to store student documents.
  

• Students can collaborate in real-time. Documents can be shared and edited between students.
  

• Access to the documents is controlled.
  

• Existing documents can be uploaded into the new Google Docs accounts.
  

• Each document has a revision history
  

• It is integrated with e-mail.

The fact that student can collaborate in real-time is something that was not available in the old, "everything installed on the PC"model. Now a group of students can all be editing the same document, from different locations. If a group of students has to do a group project, they can access the files from home and contribute from there, as long as they have an internet connection.

My school district, Greenport Schools, set up a google documents account. In the next section we’ll look at the process.