Picnik allows me even more photo-editing abilities.
Webpage editing and webmastering.
My personal blog, wiki, and website
are already completely managed via
application service providers who
use online tools for management
and editing, as does our school website and the professional association
websites I help manage.
School-specific tasks. All of my
district’s gradebooks, reporting
systems, communications, accounting, and other management systems
are already Web based. As cloud
computing has gained maturity and
acceptance, our district has started
looking for an appropriate “
enterprise” solution that will provide a
common set of tools and storage to
all staff and students. Although it is
certainly possible now for each individual to access the tools I’ve been
using, as an organization we need to
have some standardization. Google
Apps Education Edition and Microsoft’s live@edu are enterprise systems
that are free for K– 12 schools.
Chance of Showers
So why shouldn’t everyone fly to the
cloud right now? Here are a few questions that need serious consideration:
What happens when there is no Internet access? You can now use Gmail
and Google Docs offline in conjunction with Google Gears, a browser
applet. Work offline and your documents will be synced when you reconnect. Bandwidth limitations may be
a challenge for some districts with a
small pipe to the Internet, however.
Might there someday be a charge for
the services that are currently free?
The sustainability of the revenue
model is anybody’s guess. Profits
now come from advertisements
and selling more fully featured
versions of applications or larger
storage spaces.
