Sharing Tips and Tricks on Cloud Computing

[Carrie Albin]

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. 

[Maria Fishell]

Thanks for sharing the Weebly site, Susan. You also mentioned webs.com during one of our Skype conversations with my team mates. I suggested these sites to few of my students who couldn't find a job and are now thinking of going to a different route: starting their own small business. The webs.com has tools for small businesses and it is so helpful for people who have a tight budget.

[Susan Wright]

How exciting! Please let me know how this adventure turns out.

[Maria Fishell]

I definitely will :) MSU's CEP 810 has been a very valuable course.

[Julie Heintz]

Weebly is a great site to use to create class websites!  I currently use it to post general information about class, and to upload notes and assignments.  I'm interested in hearing from people who pay for the extra service with Weebly!  I use the free version, but I'm wondering if the "plus" version is worth it.  I'd like to be able to post videos of labs we do in science class for students who are absent.  Perhaps it could be used for a flipped classroom!

 

I'm in CEP 810 in Fall 2011

[Karey Klemm]

I agree! Google has some great tools out there that are free and can be accessed anywhere on any computer as long as the internet is available. I didn't know about these tools until this class and I use gmail everyday! They were staring me in the face and I had no idea. Do you think that google sites has enough options to customize a unique website?

[Angelica Rocha]

Hello,

For the past few days I've been exploring the Aviary Suite. I've always liked using Adobe's design software like Photoshop or Illustrator, and audio editing software like Soundbooth. You can do really fun and creative things with them! But those licenses can be expensive and it isn't very common to find these types of programs installed on any computer. Now with Aviary I have at my disposal all these creation tools on any computer with Internet access. The new Music Creator tool is really fun and I can see my students creating their own background music for videos or presentations. I can see my music teachers using it to explain rythms and harmonies. Then the Audio Editor "Myna" works surprisingly well. I recorded my voice without a problem, cropped the parts that I didn't want and added effects. For image editing and effects Aviary has "Phoenix" and "Peacock", I like that you can import your images from popular photo-sharing sites like Facebook, Flickr and Picassa. I also think that it's great that these tools can communicate with each other. It felt just like using Photoshop on a web browser. I never thought Cloud Computing could offer such powerful media creation tools. I will defintely be using them from now on.

[miztech]

Angelica,

I think we should be a little worried about this poor kitty. Very strange. Aviary is far more sophisticated than I thought. I took a quick look at it a few months again. I guess I was waiting for you to tell me the really good stuff. ^o^

[Maria Fishell]

This is a very neat site with cool tools, Angie. So, if you are thinking about about adding this to our SIG Prezi presentation, count me in! 8) Anything about creativity using technology.

[Joshua Vander Meulen]

The other day I was wondering if there was any cloud based design programs. This site and pixlr.com have answered my questions. I am excited to introduce these sites to my students. I imagine it takes some time to learn all the tricks of this software, but I am excited about the possibility of what their final products will look like. Did it take you a long time to learn the intricities of the software?

[Leslie Sniegowski]

After learning about cloud computing, the most useful piece of information I took away was the SaaS or Software as a Service. I think Google Docs, Pixlr and Zoho will help revolutionize posting documents and finding your resources. I have recently started to use Google Docs to share some of my documents in my classroom. I have learned that Google Docs eliminates the "I have a Mac so I can't open the document at home". My students are able to open the documents on their computers at home regardless of their operating system. Google Docs also helps to solve the problem of losing or erasing your flashdrive. Most teachers would be lost if they misplaced or erased the documents on their flashdrive. Posting documents on Google Docs or the other SaaS services helps these documents to be located on the internet.

[Alejandro Gonzalez]

I totally agree with you, SaaS has helped bridge that gap between compatibility and convenience. It is amazing how easy it is for a student to have a virtual backpack filled with all of the necessary tools for a productive and successful academic experience.

[Christina Harrison]

Google Docs and Zoho  are great to use as a storage device!  I recently used Zoho to collaborate on a group project.  I found it so much easier to use a Zoho docs to create and edit our project than the old fashioned way. We only needed one document instead of merging together information at the end.  Another bonus to using Zoho was the chat option.  If we were both working on the document at the same time we could easily communicate with one another. Chatting saved time and headaches. If students were working on a project at home and used Zoho, they could easily discuss the project as well! I’ve heard that Google docs now offers the chat option as well but I haven’t used it yet.