Cloud computing refers to expandable, on-demand services and tools that are served to the user via the Internet from specialized data centers and consume almost no local processing or storage resources. Cloud computing resources support collaboration, file storage, virtualization, and access to computing cycles, and the number of available applications that rely on cloud technologies has grown to the point that few education institutions do not make some use of the cloud, whether as a matter of policy or not.(NMC Horizon Report, 2014, K-12 Edition)
Recently, Cloud computing has become widely recognized as a means of improving productivity and expanding collaboration in education. The following video by Stephen Fry shows the changes to computer thinking, which may offer you some clues about how cloud computing works.
Recently, Cloud computing has become widely recognized as a means of improving productivity and expanding collaboration in education. The following video by Stephen Fry shows the changes to computer thinking, which may offer you some clues about how cloud computing works.
There is great potential of integrating this technology into education, for example, Google Drive is one of the best applications available online. Apart from allowing teachers to store their files in the cloud and being able to access them from any computer or mobile device, Google Drive is also a strong productivity suite with services that enables teachers to design various teaching activities, for example, students can create multimodal materials with Google Drive, such as documents, spreadsheets, and drawings etc. Additionally, it encourages students to work collaboratively because it allows students to collaborate, edit, and work on these documents synchronously. The following videos show how Google Drive works for educators.
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The website below provides teachers with some Google Drive Extensions, click to check out if you are interested.
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/07/6-must-have-google-drive-extensions-for.html
http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/07/6-must-have-google-drive-extensions-for.html