Welcome to the Cloud

If, like me, you started using computers back in '84, you know storage media have come a long, long way. I remember, back then, carefully labeling 5 1/4" floppy disks, carrying them around in the hard green case I bought to store them in, which I still keep as a sort of memento of another era. Then came the 3 1/2" "hard disks" (which is what everyone called them though, technically, they were still floppies). When the CD-ROM came along, I remember thinking, "Gosh, I could keep every single document on just one of those babies." Then it was the DVD with way more storage space, and finally the gazillion byte flash drive. (I haven't felt nearly as nostalgic for media that came out since the original floppy disk)--I threw them in the trash as soon as I had transferred the files to the latest media.) Our ability to store information more and more information on smaller and more convenient media amazed me. So I published my composition textbook on a flash drive (it's called Star Writer and is published by Fountainhead Press, if you're interested). My students love it because it is by far their cheapest textbook, and it doesn't weigh their already overstuffed backpacks down even further.
Great, right? Well, not so much. Every storage media has pitfalls, and the flash drive has been no different. Students lose the drives easily, leave them in pockets and send them through the washer, sit on them and break them. To make matters worse, someone invented a virus that could jump from the drive to a computer hard disk simply by plugging the drive into a USB port. I remember that when the infection hit us, it spread to every computer lab on campus in a matter of hours. But there's another problem with the flash drive that's even worse. Because it's so small, it's forgettable. Students virtually never bring their "textbook" to class because they simply don't see it sitting among all their other books.

This is where cloud computing comes in. "The Cloud" is basically the Internet, but it's a different way of understanding it. The "Web" is a metaphor for the various servers and lines running from server to server in a way that makes information attainable in much the same way as a spider using it's own web to track down a caught fly. The "Cloud" is a metaphor for understanding the Internet not just as a place to get information, but also as a secure storage space for documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDF's, etc. But this storage space doesn't exist physically. Instead, it exists kind of "out there," like clouds in the stratosphere. Now this ability to store information has been available for a long time. But most hosts offering the storage had limited space for each user and limited capability for synchronizing documents. Because of companies like Google, however, the storage space has become virtually unlimited. This is because large server hubs have populated the globe, which means that companies like Google and Microsoft can share resources, thus increasing the Internet's power and capacity.

Why is this important?  Well, it has a lot of advantages for both students and teachers. First, because the storage medium is not physical you don't have to worry about losing it. Second, it allows the work to be accessed from any computer anywhere. Third, the work is secured by a username and password, but it can be shared between two or more people, even allowing a group to modify a document without having to drive long distances to collaborate. And, finally, many of the services are completely free, while others are free with some limits. But even those that offer premium services, do so at a very modest price. Two good examples are Google Docs, which includes a word processor as well as a spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing application and Evernote.

What makes Google Docs especially great as a word processor is that it auto-saves every few minutes and it allows the user to go back to older versions of a document, which means that a writing teacher can check the revision history of a piece of student writing (if that writing is shared with her or him) and allows the writer to recover that stricken paragraph that he or she wishes hadn't been deleted. One drawback (although, in fact, in many ways it's a positive characteristic) is that Google Docs strongly resembles Office 2003. Students who've been using Office 2007 or 2010 may feel that Docs is too stripped down; however, all the functions are extremely easy to find, and most students don't need the complicated features of Word, Excel, etc. Another drawback is that if the Internet is down or your student doesn't have access to the Internet at home, it's not quite as useful. So it's a good idea to teach students the value of backing everything up onto at least two other media (a flash drive and an external hard disk, say). While I'm on the subject of Google, I'd like to go off on a bit of a tangent here. Google also offers a free calendar. The calendar is a miracle for smartphone users because by simply entering your cell phone number and asking Google to send your calendar information to your phone, you can easily get reminders of where you need to be and when.

Evernote is a storage service and note-taking space that offers a limited number of uploads per month for free (notes taken in the program are unlimited). Additionally, the free version does not allow uploading of certain types of documents, including those created with the Office suite. It does allow you to store screenshots, Web clips, photos, and plain text documents. These can all be filed in different notebooks as a way to organize them. They can also be tagged so that entering whatever tag or part of the document title you remember can help you find a document quickly. Unlike Google Docs, Evernote can be downloaded for free as a program onto your hard drive, which makes uploading files much easier and allows you to synchronize your files on several computers. Organizing the files is best done through the Web interface, in my opinion, because it seems easier to drag and drop. Also free for downloading is the Mobile Evernote application for smartphones. So if you need to check a memo you received via e-mail and saved into Evernote before that PTA meeting, you can access it from your phone. The premium service, which costs around $50 a year is worth the price for me. After my desktop crashed, I decided it was time to get all my files into the Cloud so that I would never have to worry about losing my life's work again (luckily, I was able to get my files onto an external drive, but it was touch and go for a while). I have a lot of files still to upload to Evernote, so having 500 MB worth of uploads per month will be useful. The premium service also allows you to share notebooks with other users, which means the tutors and graduate assistants in the Writing Center have access to all the files they need to keep the Center going.

There are plenty of other means of computing in the Cloud: using Blogger.com keeps your blog content in the Cloud. The years worth of chats I had with my dad on Google Chat before he died (which lends a special meaning to the metaphor) are all saved in the Cloud as well as all the e-mail exchanges I had with both him and my mother. 

If you haven't dabbled in cloud computing, it's time for you to start. The 2009 Horizon Report listed cloud-computing as a technology teachers should deploy within one year. That's this year. Even though families living in rural school districts might not have access to the Internet, the Cloud can benefit both teachers and students, especially those with one-computer classrooms, because each student can have a different login to access Google Docs or Evernote to get to their work while keeping it secure and private from other students.

Important Press Release for Rural Schools

This is directly from the Kellog Foundation.

Rural School Districts Eligible for
Federal i3 Grant Application Assistance

W.K. Kellogg Foundation Provides $1.4 Million Grant to
Rural School and Community Trust

Battle Creek, Mich. -- As schools across the country prepare their applications for the Investing in Innovation (i3) grant competition, rural communities with school districts serving high poverty regions may be experiencing greater challenges in the development of their applications, with less access to professional guidance and grant-writing support. Without targeted assistance, these districts will likely face increased challenges in their efforts to educate a large and growing segment of the nation's children.

Through a new $1.4 million grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Rural School and Community Trust (Rural Trust) will address these challenges and provide customized technical assistance for rural school districts seeking i3 grants. On-site workshops and other outreach efforts will ensure that rural applicants are informed of the i3 requirements and application process. The Rural Trust will also assist rural school applicants in identifying promising innovations, completing applications, and building long-term capacity to complete competitive grant applications in the future.

“This support from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation comes at a crucial time for rural schools and communities,” said Dr. Doris Terry Williams, executive director of the Rural School and Community Trust. “Our partnership with the Kellogg Foundation will provide vital support to strengthen rural districts’ capacity to secure funding for innovations aimed at reducing dropout rates, increasing graduation rates, and improving teacher and principal quality in high-needs schools.”

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, during the 2007-2008 school year 19% of U.S. public school students were designated as living in rural areas. This includes more than 25,000 schools and 9.2 million students, of which 41% are economically disadvantaged (as measured by free and reduced school meal rate).

“We believe that every student — including those in rural communities — should have access to the finest education available,” said Sterling K. Speirn, president and CEO of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation. “The funding allocated as part of the Investing in Innovation i3 effort provides an unusual and exciting opportunity for rural students, but the application requirements at first glance could have some districts deciding not to participate. We have partnered with the Rural Trust to help remove obstacles and provide the support necessary to make the application process easier and doable. We would strongly encourage rural schools to seize the opportunity to apply for i3 funds.” 

To learn more about the Rural Trust's technical assistance program and how your school district can receive support, visit http://www.ruraledu.org/i3.html. To learn more about other education and learning programs the Kellogg Foundation supports, visit http://www.wkkf.org/what-we-support/educated-kids.aspx.

About the Department of Education’s Investing in Innovation Fund

The Investing in Innovation Fund (i3) was established under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) and provides competitive grants to applicants (schools, school districts, and partnering nonprofit organizations) with a record of improving student achievement and expanding the implementation and investment of innovative practices that are demonstrated to have an impact on improving student achievement or student growth, closing achievement gaps, decreasing dropout rates, increasing high school graduation rates, or increasing college enrollment and completion rates.

These grants will (1) allow eligible entities to expand and develop innovative practices that can serve as models of best practices, (2) allow eligible entities to work in partnership with the private sector and the philanthropic community, and (3) identify and document best practices that can be shared and taken to scale based on demonstrated success.    

Application deadline: May 11, 2010.


 Click here for a PDF copy of this press release.
 Click here for an MSWord copy of this press release.

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The Rural School and Community Trust is a national nonprofit organization addressing the crucial relationship between good schools and thriving communities. Our mission is to help rural schools and communities grow better together. Working in some of the poorest, most challenging places, the Rural Trust involves young people in learning linked to their communities, improves the quality of teaching and school leadership, and advocates in a variety of ways for appropriate state educational policies, including the key issue of equitable and adequate funding for rural schools. For more information, visit www.ruraledu.org.

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation, established in 1930, supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, southern Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean. For more information, visit www.wkkf.org.

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Some Quotes from Richard Miller

A colleague and I were able to secure a grant to have Richard Miller, Professor and Executive Director of the Plangere Writing Center at Rutgers, visit our university. He gave three lectures, during which I took a few notes.  Here they are, in no particular order...

Social networks are an echo chamber of people who all think the same way--that's what it means to be a "friend."

Stop trying to learn the process and start getting the software to do what you want it to do.

Research is meditation, deliberation, speculation.

The nature of invention in its earliest state is that it's beyond language.

If you're only searching for the top Google links, you're not researching. You're not researching. You're just coming up with the most found research.

You're doing research when you start looking into something that violates your expectations. If you're only looking at something that supports your opinion, you're generating propaganda, not inquiry.

Research suspends the ease of moral judgment.

Only one person can teach you how to think, and that's you.

The power of research is to compel you to confront your own ignorance and teach yourself to think.

The danger of the Internet is that it can lull you into believing that writing is doing.

You don't have to be a passive consumer (couch surfer); you could produce pieces that create a better world.

The only way to get to profundity is through frustration, boredom, etc.

None of us as smart alone as two people together.

In the cloud.

The more stuff you find, the more good stuff you find--stuff that challenges your expectations.

10-minute idea driven visual essay.

Six Technologies to Watch According to the 2010 Horizon Report

The Horizon Report has been published every year since 2002 through a collaboration between the New Media Consortium and the EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. It lists six technologies that educators should consider adopting/deploying/begging their IT department to make accessible. The report suggests that the first two be adopted within a year, the second pair within two - three years and the last pair within four - five years. I've summarized this year's report for my educator friends.

1. Mobile computing, including laptops, netbooks, smart phones. On the fly access to information and tools for education, business, productivity, etc. has become the norm for millions of people, especially younger generations.
2. Open content, including open access to dictionaries, encyclopedias, textbooks, even free courses that can be taken through OpenCourseware at MIT. Open content makes collaboration easier and more affordable. Why collaborate? To paraphrase Richard Miller as he put it at a recent lecture at UCA, two of us together are smarter than one of us alone. When we allow everyone access to vital information, we have a greater capacity to understand the world and change it for the better. Check out SmartHistory (art history), Looking for Whitman (literature), Creative Commons, Teachers without Borders, and Folksemantic.
3. E-books, obtainable through devices like Amazon's Kindle or Sony's Reader. This goes back both to mobile computing and open content. The devices make it possible to obtain textbooks, novels, poetry collections, etc., wirelessly, on the go allowing greater access (there's that word again) to information. With more and more books becoming part of the public domain and being offered openly, there is also the potential for saving money, the environment, and the backache of toting heavy textbooks between classes.
4. Simple Augmented Reality. This is a fancy term for a simple act: layering virtual data on top of the real world to "enhanc[e] the information we can perceive with our senses" (p. 21). An example of AR would be the GoodFood application downloaded to the Palm Pre. Using the Pre's GPS, GoodFood can pinpoint the location of restaurants, provide reviews, and even link to the restaurant's Web site. Educational AR sites include Wikitude, Metaio (publisher of print books that, once purchased can be accessed online. Pointing a webcam to the book allows user to access features like pop-out globes), Google's Skymap, ARIS Mobile Media Learning Games.
5. Gesture-based computing. Gesture based computing is more natural and allows for better interaction than keyboard/mouse-based computing. It is, therefore, easier to learn and can make computers and mobile devices more accessible for younger children. Firefox currently has a gesture-based add-on called "MouseGestures" that makes surfing more productive.
6. Visual data analysis. This has been around for a long time. Take, for example Excel, which can convert data in a spread sheet into a pie chart or bar graph, giving us the ability to see trends and patterns. However, VDA has gone into hyperdrive with 3D visualizations, animations, etc. which make the vizualized data better, more automatic to generate, and more meaningful. Check out: Many Eyes, Wordle, Flowing Data, and Gapminder.