By far for me this seems like the most confusing form of technology to follow. After watching the videos and reading the articles it made more sense, but up until now I've never formally heard of cloud computing. I actually had to reread and re watch some of the articles and videos. After looking at the educational clouds it all made more sense and I was able to see all of the many helpful tools an educator has access to. According to the 2010 Horizon Report: K12 Edition it was difficult to find examples of the use of cloud computing in schools a year ago, there are now many, many schools that have adopted cloud-based tools for productivity, scheduling, curriculum development, and collaboration, at least at the administrative level. I've also learned from the YouTube video Cloud Computing Explained that cloud computing can offer significant cost savings in IT support, software, and hardware expenses. With the descriptions that I followed this seems like a very valuable tool for teachers, administrators, and older students to use. There are quite a few examples of how these groups of adults and students use cloud computing. I definitely see the advantages of cloud computing for schools and why it makes it an attractive option for many schools. It also makes more sense when given real examples of how this technology is being used and that is successful.
After exploring the educational clouds it was easy to find many that would be beneficial in a classroom. There were so many outlets, which then led to more options, it seemed never ending. Three of the sites I chose were Ficly, Museum Box, and School Town. Ficly is a wonderful site for creative writing. It allows students to build on another story or start their own. I know personally my students are not big fans of writing. This would be a great site to introduce them to because it is only short pieces of writing, and it allows them to be as creative as they want. They are also able to add to another story or start another story, whatever they want. So many possibilities, plus they get to be on a computer instead of writing on paper. Museum Box is a site that provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? History and Social Studies are interesting subjects and so much can be done with them. This is a great idea because it allows students to pick something that interests them and then they research and add information from websites or books. The last site that I chose is School Town. Students learn in a multimedia rich portal where all courses, assignments, events, announcements, discussions, chat forums, files and portfolio are seamlessly presented and archived. Students collaborate and learn to be good cyber-citizens. This is a beneficial site because students, teachers, and parents have all the same information and know what is expected. And what students will enjoy and benefit most from is that it's all done on computers, which most are already savvy with.
Hello Celeste, I agree this entire week’s lesson is new to me. I felt overwhelmed just with the tags, and them clouding. What I got out of the clouding is the three key points. First the level of scalability, you can have five or a 100 computers using the same resource with no problems. Second, you can have instant computing power from the different cloud software’s, and it’s always available. Third, clouding save you, schools or corporation money by only charging for the resources used. In addition clouding reduces financial cost being you don’t have to invest in IT, or upgrades in servers. I believe that clouding allows us access to educational materials most schools wouldn’t consider spending money on. I focused my three sites on clouding that would benefit me as a teacher. Such as online learning environment, this is something I’ve always wanted to introduce my student, but it was too expensive. I also chose an I-grade book because I have to track students for a period of three years after graduation. I believe this will give me flexibility in being creative with my statistics needed. As stated in Horizon Report “Many of the technologies we use every day” I have been a Gmail user along with Google Docs but had no idea how they in a sense operated so efficiently. I we know, as the Horizon report stated clouding is a surplus of computer resources ready to use. I guess this open a whole new avenue for those of us in education. I truly don’t understand why hasn’t their been more marketing on clouding.
ReplyDeleteI like Ficly too. It gives students the opportunities to tell their stories freely, not only to practice English skills, but also share their feelings with others.
ReplyDeleteHi Celeste,
ReplyDeleteSchool Town is an interesting site. It will both benefit for students' learning and computer skills.