Educators Guide Cloud Computing

Image from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cloud_computing.svg

Educators Guide Cloud Computing

Introduction
What is Cloud Computing and how can you as an Educator use it to full effect in your classroom? That is the question, and more, that this manual will answer. As an introduction, and to briefly explain what Cloud Computing is, here is what Wikipedia defines Cloud Computing as: Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network (typically the Internet). The name comes from the use of a cloudshaped symbol as an abstraction for the complex infrastructure it contains in system diagrams. Cloud computing entrusts remote services with a user's data, software and computation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing Before you, as the Educator, can start implementing Cloud Computing in your lessons, it is important that you understand what Cloud Computing is, the positive as well as the negative implications of using it, as well as some of the dangers and precautions that need to be taken when working online. Onsite vs. Online 1. Onsite When we talk about onsite computing, everything is done on your computer and if you happen to go away from your local machine; to an Internet caf or to a friends house, you would not be able to access anything from your computer like your email, documents, photos, movies or anything else on your computer. Laptops have made things a bit easier because if you do need to work away from home or even need to do work in your classroom or staffroom, you can take your laptop with you in order to access your documents, photos, movies etc. However, then you need an External Modem or plugin to access the Internet if you need to check your email or access quality educational sites for your lessons. In this case, there are sometimes security issues where you cant access the particular Wi-Fi at your school, and it takes time to get it all set up. 2. Online Online computing is becoming more and more popular with people around the world. This is not really a new concept and has been used successfully by people in all walks of life: from educators to lawyers, doctors and astronauts. Let us use a practical example of how online computing works. If you have email accounts such as Gmail, Yahoo Mail or Hotmail, you have access to your email wherever you go and on whichever computer, laptop, iPad or other digital device you can get your hands on. This is because your email is stored in cyberspace somewhere, in the cloud, if you will. Various companies have huge server warehouses where all this information is stored, so that it can be easily accessible by the general public. As it is not stored locally on your particular machine, it is easy to access from anywhere provided you remember and protect your username and password.

Image from: http://blogs.thenews.com.pk/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/cloud.gif Page 2 Copyright - Computers 4 Kids

Educators Guide Cloud Computing

5. Ways to keep your Information Safe in the Cloud

Internet cloud services (services that store your data on a server rather than on your hard drive so you can access it from any Internet-enabled device) are more powerful than ever before. Backing up photographs and important documents has never been easier. Google Docs and Gmail can take the place of Word Processing programmes and Outlook Express or other email applications. Banking sites take the place of expensive finance applications. All we have to do is be safe while we use them. Here are some simple safety tips for keeping your data secure in the cloud. 1. Make your passwords as tough to crack as Fort Knox. The more complicated your password, the harder it is for hackers to crack it, and the safer your data will be. Although complex passwords are harder to remember, they are better and safer to use. If you cant remember them, write them down and store them in a safe place. Once you have your complex and (hopefully) secure password, dont share it with anyone. 2. Try and use different passwords for each different application or online site that you access. If someone did happen to hack one of your online applications and discover your password, they will then try that same password with every other online application or site that you are registered with. 3. You can use a Password Management utility like LastPass or other services. This utility locks all your unique and complex passwords behind one master password. That means you have the freedom to create separate log-ins for your email account, Facebook, Twitter, cloud storage and everything else you do online, but still access these accounts by memorising one password. Although Web browsers do remember passwords for you, LastPass can synchronise your information across multiple browsers and devices. 4. This may be one of the most important tips you may ever receive when it comes to using a computer: BACK UP YOUR DATA. There are various ways you can do this on an external Hard Drive, on CD or DVD, or by using online companies or services. There are various online storage solutions. Dropbox has a simple and user-friendly interface, but only allows storage of a few gigabytes. On the plus side, it creates a folder on your hard drive that's linked to the Web and all you have to do to upload files is drag them into the folder. WindowsLiveSkydrive is designed to make it easy to view and edit Office documents in the cloud. Amazons Cloud Drive offers 5 Gigs of free storage and a Web interface for uploading your files. Other services, like SugarSync and Mozy focus more on automatically backing up your important data and storing it, rather than making it easily accessible online. FileGooi is an example of a South African company that does the same thing as Dropbox and has similar features. Having given you some of the options for data storage, all that remains to be said is this: dont rely on ONLY ONE service. Have multiple storage and back-up options, so that if one service or device turns out to be unreliable, your data is not lost. 5. Browse the Internet wisely so as to keep yourself and your passwords safe. Try and use only reputable companies, sites or services when creating accounts and entering usernames and passwords. Also, be aware of what computers you are logged into. Browsers will often ask to save your login information and keep the log-in session active as long as the browser is open. This could be a problem if you have logged onto a site in an Internet caf and then leave without logging off. Anyone can then get into your site or account and gain unrestricted access.
References: http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/5-ways-to-keep-your-information-secure-in-thecloud.htm#page=0 http://visualbasic-development.blogspot.com/2012/05/5-ways-to-keep-your-information-secure.html

Page 3

Copyright - Computers 4 Kids

Educators Guide Cloud Computing

Cloud computing in education

Microsoft cloud computing in education gives better choice and flexibility to education IT departments. The platform and applications you use can be on-premises, off-premises, or a combination of both, depending on your academic organisations needs. The advantages that come with cloud computing can help you resolve some of the common challenges you might have while supporting your education institution. Cost. You can choose a subscription or, in some cases, a pay-as-you-go plan whichever works best with your organisations business model. Flexibility. Scale your infrastructure to maximize investments. Cloud computing allows you to dynamically scale as demands fluctuate. Accessibility. Help make data and services publicly available without jeopardising sensitive information.

Choices in the cloud When you use Microsoft cloud services, you choose whether you use it on-premises, have the software hosted as a service, or use a combination of the two. This choice comes with the freedom to adjust or modify your infrastructure and deployment model as service demands change. You choose how best to combine: Infrastructure as a service. Get on-demand computing and storage to host, scale, and manage applications and services. Using Microsoft data centres means you can scale with ease and speed to meet the infrastructure needs of your entire organisation or individual departments within it, globally or locally. Platform as a service. The Windows Azure cloud platform as a service consists of an operating system, a fully relational database, message-based service bus, and a claimsbased access controller providing security-enhanced connectivity and federated access for on-premise applications. As a family of on-demand services, the Windows Azure platform offers your organization a familiar development experience, on-demand scalability, and reduced time to market for your applications. Software as a service. Microsoft hosts online services that provide your faculty, staff, and students with a consistent experience across multiple devices. Microsoft Live@edu provides students, staff, faculty, and alumni long-term, primary email addresses and other applications that they can use to collaborate and communicate onlineall at no cost to your education institution. Exchange Hosted Services offers online tools to help your organization protect itself from spam and malware, satisfy retention requirements for e-discovery and compliance, encrypt data to preserve confidentiality, and maintain access to email during and after emergency situations. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online provides management solutions deployed through Microsoft Office Outlook or an Internet browser to help your customers efficiently automate workflows and centralize information. Office Web Apps provide on-demand access to the web-based version of the Microsoft Office suite of applications, including Office Word, Office Excel, and Office PowerPoint.

References: http://www.microsoft.com/education/en-us/solutions/Pages/cloud_computing.aspx

Page 4

Copyright - Computers 4 Kids

Educators Guide Cloud Computing

Practical Applications
Just to introduce how the cloud deserves a place in our current education institution, its important to reiterate the education philosophy. Its essence is knowledge. Its this knowledge which brings advancement, achievement and success. However, there are several things which make this unattainable. To put it bluntly, this is failure. Small classrooms, lack of resources, short-handed staff, lack of adequate Educators, the list is endless. One way or the other, cloud computing can be utilised to improve education standards and activities. The end result will be to curb the problems mentioned above and instead, boost performance. Capitalising on economies of scale Problems like those in which learners cram into a classroom can be solved with virtualisation of the class environment. Students can actually log onto a space online and attend classes outside of the ineffective class environment. As such, the lecturers do not have to stress themselves out with outflowing classes beaming with crammed students. Instead, they can focus their attention on creating content students will understand, develop their skills and pass their exams. There are also other ways colleges can leverage on economies of scale outside the classroom. For instance, if the paper systems are replaced by distributed work management systems, the workload can be reduced substantially. This can boost the rate at which they achieve efficiency needed to work optimally, just to name but a few. Improve collaborations and assignments working Whereas many schools already have in place computer-based learning, enough has not yet been done. With the adoption of different cloud computing platforms, learners can collaborate more. They can work on assignments together as a team on the cloud. This process is not only efficient for time saving qualities, but it also promotes understanding in learners who are not great with face to face tutoring or discussion groups. As a result, more progress can be recorded among these learners, compared to scenarios where traditional methods apply. Improved access to education resources and sharing The nature of the cloud also allows learners to share not only ideas. They can share education infrastructure and tools. With this in mind, schools can spend less on new software, text books and latest-expensive quality learning material. This ensures that learners and schools can easily share quality resources. This will not only help schools work within a tight budget, but will also enable learners to access vital information. Eventually, this will boost their academic grades, learning experience and enforce collaboration, all of which will boost the quality of education. In general, education is diverse. It has many functions, individuals and processes. Innovative tools like those hosted in the cloud can help optimise their functions effectively. There is a greater potential schools can achieve with the cloud. However, adequate planning and Educator involvement need to be invested to enable this transition.
http://www.cloudtweaks.com/2012/09/effective-ways-cloud-computing-can-contribute-to-education-success/

Page 5

Copyright - Computers 4 Kids

Educators Guide Cloud Computing

Interesting Information
Many universities, vendors and government organisations are investing in research around the topic of cloud computing: In October 2007, the Academic Cloud Computing Initiative (ACCI) was announced as a multi-university project designed to enhance students' technical knowledge to address the challenges of cloud computing. In April 2009, UC Santa Barbara released the first open source platform-as-aservice, AppScale, which is capable of running Google App Engine applications at scale on a multitude of infrastructures. In April 2009, the St Andrews Cloud Computing Co-laboratory was launched, focusing on research in the important new area of cloud computing. Unique in the UK, StACC aims to become an international centre of excellence for research and teaching in cloud computing and will provide advice and information to businesses interested in using cloud-based services. In October 2010, the TClouds (Trustworthy Clouds) project was started, funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework Programme. The project's goal is to research and inspect the legal foundation and architectural design to build a resilient and trustworthy cloud-of-cloud infrastructure on top of that. The project also develops a prototype to demonstrate its results. In December 2010, the TrustCloud research project was started by HP Labs Singapore to address transparency and accountability of cloud computing via detective, data-centric approaches encapsulated in a five-layer TrustCloud Framework. The team identified the need for monitoring data life cycles and transfers in the cloud, leading to the tackling of key cloud computing security issues such as cloud data leakages, cloud accountability and cross-national data transfers in transnational clouds. In July 2011, the High Performance Computing Cloud (HPCCLoud) project was kicked-off aiming at finding out the possibilities of enhancing performance on cloud environments while running the scientific applications - development of HPCCLoud Performance Analysis Toolkit which was funded by CIM-Returning Experts Programme - under the coordination of Prof. Dr. Shajulin Benedict. In June 2011, the Telecommunications Industry Association developed a Cloud Computing White Paper, to analyse the integration challenges and opportunities between cloud services and traditional U.S. telecommunications standards. In 2011, FEMhub launched NCLab, a free SaaS (Software as a Service) application for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). NCLab has more than 10,000 users as of July 2012.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing#Research

Page 6

Copyright - Computers 4 Kids

Educators Guide Cloud Computing

Useful Websites
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing http://www.infoworld.com/d/cloud-computing/what-cloud-computing-really-means-031 http://computer.howstuffworks.com/cloud-computing/cloud-computing.htm http://searchcloudcomputing.techtarget.com/definition/cloud-computing http://blog.bounceweb.com/what-does-cloud-computing-have-in-store-for-us/ http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9902616-7.html

Page 7

Copyright - Computers 4 Kids