What the heck is “Cloud Computing”? This term comes from the idea that computing files, be it programs, documents or data are hosted out on the Internet somewhere. Common examples of this would be Google Docs, Flickr and Microsoft Live. Google and Microsoft have both made a strong push to become a complete source of computing needs and offering great help and support for education. Many Michigan districts have moved to or are considering using cloud computing as a primary source of Office and email software. At Kent City Community Schools this could mean savings in the form of elimination of IT time spent on Office products, Email, file storage, backup systems, and even some educational software.
Cloud computing holds many good ideas for education. Consider who is holding a file that you believe is critical to tomorrow’s classroom lesson. Could cloud computing be trusted when you have in important presentation tomorrow and your files and data are in the cloud? Are your clouded documents safe from prying eyes or hackers? How about those times when there is no access to the cloud? Who has the ability to read your cloud documents and can your personal or sensitive data be accessed?
Further the cloud is available whenever the Internet is there. Software as a Service (SaaS) is a close cousin to cloud computing. The idea is to only pay for the software you need while you need it. Software is hosted on the Internet and then used there…no installation, no maintenance, updates are done for you, always the latest version.
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