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Sharing Tips and Tricks on Cloud Computing

In your courses you have been asked to share your tips and tricks of cloud computing. Post any ideas, activities, resources, or other tips you may have regarding cloud computing in this discussion forum.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Christine Novak on November 9, 2011 at 8:06pm

I was a hard-core Dropbox fan! Being split between 2 different schools, then add in my home computer and laptop, and Dropbox was necessary! Thanks to my CEP class, I'm learning more about Google docs and using that more then Dropbox. I really like that I can access it from anywhere and don't have to worry about what software is on the computer. The other day I was working on things during a break at work from a computer at school. It was wonderful to just know that everything would just be there and work. I'm really liking Google Docs!

Permalink Reply by Aubrey McClain on November 5, 2011 at 8:59pm

I have run into problems this week using technology in the classroom that I think could be solved through cloud computing. We have a shared student file we use to save all student work. However, anyone-teacher or student-can access anything on this drive. Last week, all of the work my 7th graders had done this year, including assignments they had offered revisions to other students on and needed to print and give to me for a grade, were deleted from the shared drive. There was no way to retrieve this work. My students were so upset because most of them really do the best they can for me. They were disappointed that they would not be able to see the comments that were left for them on their writing. If we had been able to use Google-Docs, this would not be the case. Unfortunately, when we tried to upload from the shared drive to G-Docs, we realized that our computers were still running IE 4. I could not believe it. Our tech teacher tried to upload the latest version of Internet Explorer and it would not update. I do not have a solution to this problem. I will be meeting with my administrators next week to inform them of the technology deficiencies. Any suggestions on what I should discuss with them would be greatly appreciated!

Permalink Reply by Miaomiao Cui on December 1, 2011 at 11:35pm

I feel so sorry to hear that. Hope this problem will be solved soon, and never happen again. But I think you can try to use google documents at home, and let students to hand in their work at home if they have computers at home. You know cloud computing allows us to get access to Internet anywhere and anytime.

Permalink Reply by Hugh Potter on November 5, 2011 at 9:21pm

A hybrid of Google forms & Splashtop. I have been working on figuring out how best to get my Ipad 2 and my projector to communicate and "mirror" information for student use. What I have recently found is this really cool hybridization of Spashtop, an App and a streamer, that allows for the students to use my ipad to control my desktop and when matched with Google forms, I can create quizzes, presentations and informational documents using the Google cloud as the base...so cool!

Permalink Reply by Lauren Pate on November 7, 2011 at 10:55pm

There are tons of advantages to cloud computing including sharing tools and work, zero to low costs, and providing a backing up of the work created. There are many free educational tools to use through the Software as Service option, which is one of the three ways to cloud compute. These include Zoho writer, Google docs, Adobe Buzzword, 37Signals Writeboard, TechSmith Jing, and First in Math just to name a few. The First in Math is interesting because the students can be exposed to a variety of concepts in different forms. They can play games, which continue to build on skills from the previous level. They can also look at modules that represent questions that are on standardized tests. In addition, the activities provide assessments for teachers. These applications provide ways for students to learn from every learning style, requires little or no budget from the school, and they promote collaboration within the classroom and beyond.

Permalink Reply by Miaomiao Cui on December 1, 2011 at 11:30pm

I find a website called http://www.digitaldialects.com/Chinese.htm. There are more than 30 kinds of language learning free online. I can choose Chinese, and then there are many topics appear , students can choose any topic they like. There are free games, flashcards, songs and animation to help students learn different topics. It is not boring, and it will enlarge their vocabulary amount when they play games. Also, because this is a platform for clouding computing, so teachers and students benefit from this website no matter where they are in this world.It is terrific.

Permalink Reply by Brian Jenks on December 2, 2011 at 9:39am

Great site...thanks for posting it.

Permalink Reply by Miaomiao Cui on December 3, 2011 at 12:56pm

You are welcome. :)

Permalink Reply by xiaochen song on December 3, 2011 at 2:08pm

I recently found a website called "quizlet.com". It allows World language teachers to create their flash cards. This is a set of cards that I made when I taught adjectives: http://quizlet.com/8213449/adjective-flash-cards/. Once the flash cards are created, the learning games and tests are formed in order to help students practice them. Students loved to use this website to practice because it is fun.

As for teachers, it is very convenient. Teachers can add or remove vocabulary from the list according to students' needs.

This website is free to register. Although it costs 15 dollars to upgrade if teachers want to have unlimited user groups or to upload their own flash card pictures.

So far, I think this is useful to my students because students master a language through repetition, and this website provides a fun way for students to repeatedly practice the target language.

Permalink Reply by Tara Swanepoel on December 4, 2011 at 10:30pm

Yes, back it up. Yes, it's worth $8 a month or $0.15/GB/month or whatever deal you find. Use Rackspace, Live Drive, Amazon Simple Storage Service or whichever cloud storage you find and like. We thought we were safe. After all, the files were on 4 computers and 1 external hard drive. And then two computers got infected with a horrific virus making the content not salvageable, one computer got stolen, the other had its hard drive completely wiped clean by accident when it was sent in for its annual "checkup." And the external hard drive? Dropped and rendered inaccessible. All of this happened within a few weeks. And all of the legal papers for beginning the school year in Bolivia had to be recreated by the one hard copy that existed. Lesson learned :)

Permalink Reply by Susan Wright on December 5, 2011 at 6:45pm

Wow! That's an unbelievable scenario. One resource I use is Screencast. It's a TechSmith product. They have a free version as well as a fee based one.

Permalink Reply by Tara Swanepoel on December 11, 2011 at 9:55pm

Unfortunately, we were only able to recover a small fraction of what was on the external harddrive. I'm sure more could have been saved...for the right price...and in the States. In the end, we just shook our heads and learned our lesson. :)