Cloud Computing

    One of the most awful days in my life was when I was taking a college class and I had a research paper due on this particular day. I saved the paper onto a floppy disk, and I double checked to see if it had saved properly and it had. The only thing remaining was to go to lab and print the paper-I had run out of paper so I couldn't print it on my old dot matrix printer. My worst nightmare then took place: I loaded the disk onto the computer only to discover that the disk had been compromised somehow between me saving the paper and then walking to the lab. I was fortunate that I had an understanding professor who gave me extra time to rewrite it and turn it in later. Because of this, cloud computing has piqued my interest.

    I like Google Docs in particular. Perhaps it doesn't have a few bells and whistles that Microsoft Office has, but I see this impacting my classroom quite a bit. The fact that it is free to sign up for means that all students get an account and it reduces the cost of paper and ink because it would reduce the amount of each that would need to be purchased. All they would have to do is complete the assignment and forward it to me for grading. Also, I love the fact that students can work together on assignments and be able to access and edit it at any time. Of equal or greater importance is that there will be no more "I lost my flash drive" or "I forgot to save my report"; it will be sitting on a "cloud"!

    Even being a math teacher, cloud computing can be a useful tool. I can have the kids do my quarterly writing assignment online and add more writing to my curriculum without adding more paper to my always crowded tray of assignments I need to grade. Also, I could give assignments on spreadsheets or use the "form" to make quizzes or standardized test practice. I'm liking this more with each keystroke.

    Implementing this could be a bit tricky because I have limited access to computers. My plan is to ask one of the Odysseyware teachers to let me bring one of my classes in so they can sign up for a Google account. Then they can do their next quarterly writing assignment on Google Docs! Also, I'm going to transfer my lesson plans and assignments over to Google Docs so I can eliminate the need to have a thumb drive. Ultimately, I'm going to have to go for it and play around with this program so I can better utilized it in my classroom.