Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Ready or Not, the Cloud is Rolling in.
2:30 PM | 
Posted by
Sue Parler |
So when I initially read about Microsoft's Live@edu, which offers E-mail (for staff and students alike), shared calendars, and SkyDrive (cloud-based storage), quite frankly, I wasn't impressed. Been there, done that -- and more.
But the SkyDrive feature intrigued me - 25 GB of no-cost storage. That's a lot of flash drives.
DePaul Catholic is a 1:1 Tablet PC school. Every teacher and every student has a Tablet PC. This is our eighth year in the program. When a student's computer breaks down, as long as it's not hard drive failure, we take the hard drive out of the student's tablet and put it into a loaner until the original is repaired. I've steered away from solid state drives merely because they are not swappable. Enter the cloud.
If each student has storage space with Live@edu, and we script a backup sequence that points to SkyDrive, we could seriously entertain solid state drives. With the eminent advent of Windows 8, which I personally believe is a true education game-changer, I've been looking at the Lenovo Yoga and the recently released Microsoft Surface, both of which are solid state.
So I rolled up my sleeves and purchased a domain (dpchs.info) from 1&1 for 99 cents. I just created the two MX (mail) records and the CNAME record to register for Live@edu services. It's a test bed right now, so stay tuned as I take my first formal journey to the cloud.
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About Me
- Sue Parler
- I'm currently in my 32nd year teaching at DePaul Catholic HS in Wayne, NJ. I teach Game Design, Cryptology, and Spanish -- yes, it's an odd mix -- even I admit it. I am the IT Coordinator at DePaul Catholic as well, which means I manage the network, the student information system, the website, and the 900+ computers in the building. Yep, keeps me busy.
My Blog List
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How to create and use LinoIt - https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B9A3mec8t4MSTjdKaEZ1X3JaaWc11 years ago
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Assistive Technology - -- I saved this as a draft on the 10th. Oops! -- It is amazing how some of this technology has changed the face of a classroom. For students to be in more ...11 years ago
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Class Dojo - Class Dojo is a classroom management tool that allows you to give behavior feedback to students in a timely and efficient manner. It is free to sign up a...12 years ago
5 comments:
The cloud is a life saver. I have had the apple version, previously Me- now iCloud, for years now. No need for disks or drives. I can just log onto my account and get all the documents I need. The biggest piece that has helped my family is the calendar function. All of our phones, ipads, computers- all share a cloud based calendar. So, if my wife adds something to the schedule on her phone, it comes up on all of our devices. Love it!
Same for me. I've used iDisk for years. The problem I have now is two Macs - One running Snow Leopard, one Lion. iCloud is particular. Plus all my iWebs are at me.com. Transition is frequently difficult - but it shouldn't be this disruptive. Oh wait - that was last week's blog. ;-)
I may be a little behind the game here. How does security work when you have things stored in the cloud? Is it comparable in vulnerability to things stored on a computer?
@Emily
I read a paper recently that said that information stored on the cloud is a potential gold mine for cyber criminals. Security is clearly a risk, and the consumer is befuddled by it all.
This brings up a good point for our group project - we should include not only the benefits of cloud computing, but also the risks.
Wow, Sue, you continue to impress me with your knowledge and experience in educational technology. How wonderful! I am learning much from you and am thankful for this experience.
Were you on staff before DePaul Catholic became a 1:1 Tablet PC school? What major changes have you observed?
@Emily, I had similar questions about storing information in the cloud as I read Sue’s post. Thanks for asking!
@ Sue, are there precautionary measures that are taken to try to deter or prevent cyber criminals from gaining access to information in the cloud? I personally worry about the security aspect of the Cloud as well and the reliability of accessing the information I store.
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