2009 Horizon Report: The K12 Edition

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Two to Three Years: Cloud Computing

Time-to-Adoption Horizon: Two to Three Years
The cloud refers to computing resources resulting from very large “data farms” — specialized data centers that host thousands of servers. Cloud computing uses the surplus resources to lower the cost and increase the availability of disk storage and processing power to the point that anyone can obtain it, almost at a moment’s notice, very cheaply. Applications that run in the cloud can scale up or down depending on immediate demand, and many of us use such applications daily without even being aware that they are cloud-based. Image editors, word processors, social networking tools, and more are always available. Accessed via a web browser, they are often free and come with huge amounts of storage space for whatever we wish to keep there. The infrastructure has improved to the point that the cloud is robust and reliable. As usage grows, the cloud is changing our ideas about computing and communication.

Overview

The cloud is the term for networked computers that distribute processing power, applications, and large systems among many machines. Applications like Flickr (http://www.flickr.com), Google (http://www.google.com), YouTube (http://www.youtube.com), and many others use the cloud as their platform, in the way that programs on a desktop computer use that single computer as a platform. Cloud-based applications do not run on a single computer; instead they are spread over a distributed cluster, using storage space and computing resources from many available machines as needed. “The cloud” denotes any group of computers used in this way and is not tied to a particular location or owner, though many companies have proprietary clouds. “Amazon’s cloud,” for instance, refers to the computers used to power Amazon.com; the capacity of those servers has been harnessed as the Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and can be leased from Amazon for a variety of purposes.

Cloud computing tools help us work, learn, communicate, and collaborate. Most of the technologies featured in this edition of the Horizon Report are supported in some way by the cloud: collaborative environments and tools like Ning, PageFlakes, Facebook, and Voicethread are cloud applications; online communication tools are supported by cloud resources; web-based counterparts to mobile applications run in the cloud; and many, many personal web tools are cloud-based. Data storage is cheap in these environments — pennies per gigabyte — so cheap that it is often provided in surprising quantities for free.

There are cloud-based counterparts to many common software tools from email to word processing and spreadsheets. Specialized applications like Flickr and YouTube provide options for hosting and sharing media; tools for creating multimedia projects like Prezi (http://www.prezi.com) and Vuvox (http://www.vuvox.com) live in the cloud. There is no single computer, or even specific group of computers, that can be pointed to as housing these applications. To the end user, the cloud is invisible, and the technology that supports the applications does not matter — the fact that the applications are always available is key.

The cloud does have certain drawbacks. Unlike traditional software packages that can be installed on a local computer and are available as long as the operating system supports them, cloud-based applications are services offered by companies and service providers in real time. Entrusting your work and data to the cloud is also a commitment of trust that the service provider will continue to be there, even in face of changing market and other conditions. Nonetheless, the economics of cloud computing are increasingly compelling. For many institutions, cloud computing offers a cost-effective solution to the problem of how to provide services, data storage, and computing power to a growing number of Internet users without investing capital in physical machines that need to be maintained and upgraded on-site.

Relevance for Teaching, Learning, or Creative Expression

The emergence of cloud-based applications is causing a shift in the way we think about how we use software and store our files. The idea of data storage as something that can be separated from an individual computer is not unusual, but now it is becoming common to consider applications in the same light. Instead of locking files and software inside a single computer, we are gradually moving both the products of our work and the tools we use to accomplish it into the cloud. Once there, applications and data are both accessible from any computer, using tools that are free or very inexpensive. Because they live on the network, applications in the cloud make it easy to share documents, collaboratively edit, and effectively manage versions.

Cloud-based applications can provide students and teachers with free or low-cost alternatives to expensive, proprietary productivity tools. Schools are beginning to take advantage of ready-made applications hosted on a dynamic, ever-expanding cloud that enable end users to perform tasks that have traditionally required site licensing, installation, and maintenance of individual software packages. Email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, collaboration, media editing, and more can all be done inside a web browser, while the software and files are housed in the cloud.

In addition to productivity applications, services like Flickr, YouTube, and Blogger (http://www.blogger.com), as well as a host of other browser-based applications, comprise a set of increasingly powerful cloud-based tools for almost any task a user might need to do. Applications like Splashup (http://www.splashup.com) or JayCut (http://www.jaycut.com) make it easy for students to experiment with photo and video editing. With tools like SlideShare (http://www.slideshare.net) or SlideRocket (http://www.sliderocket.com), they can publish presentations and slide shows. Further, it is very easy to share content created with these tools, both in terms of collaborating on its creation and distributing the finished work.

Browser-based applications are accessible for a variety of computer and even mobile platforms, making these tools available anywhere the Internet can be accessed. Already, cloud-based applications are being used in schools to provide virtual computers to students and staff without requiring each person to own the latest laptop or desktop machine; a handful of basic machines, provided they can access the Internet and support a web browser, are all that is needed for access to virtually unlimited data storage and programs of all kinds.

We are just beginning to see direct applications for teaching and learning other than the simple availability of platform-independent tools and scalable data storage. This set of technologies has clear potential to distribute applications across a wider set of devices and greatly reduce the overall cost of computing. The support for group work and collaboration at a distance embedded in many cloud-based applications could be a benefit applicable to many learning situations.

A sampling of applications of cloud computing across the curriculum includes the following:

• Geography. Students can study real-time, real-world data with tools like Earthbrowser (http://www.earthbrowser.com). Earthbrowser combines a desktop interface with the data storage and computing power available in the cloud to create an interactive map populated with weather, geological, and other data.
• Social Studies. Using cloud-based visualization tools like GapMinder World (http://graphs.gapminder.org/world), students can explore statistical information about income, health, life expectancy, fertility rates, natural resources, and more in a visual, interactive way.
• Science. Students in chemistry, physics, astronomy, biology, and computing use Socratica (http://socratica.com), a “classroom in the cloud,” to access — and create — study modules. Teachers can add modules as well, creating a growing, open resource that is available free of charge.

Cloud Computing in Practice

The following examples provide snapshots of how cloud computing is being applied in practice.

CloudTrip: Education
http://www.cloudtrip.com/index.php?category=Education
CloudTrip is a fledgling directory of cloud-based applications, sorted into categories. The Education listing includes applications for testing, student portfolios, digital storytelling, and more.

North Carolina School Takes to the Clouds with Virtual Desktops
http://www.thejournal.com/articles/23377/
A partnership between SimTone Corporation and Frank Porter Graham Elementary School in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, will leverage cloud computing technologies to provide students and staff with virtual computers.

Open Science Grid
http://www.news.wisc.edu/12927
The University of Wisconsin-Madison and several partner schools are working on a project to develop and expand a national Open Science Grid to provide computing power and data storage to solve large, data-intensive challenges in science.

Science Clouds
http://workspace.globus.org/clouds/
Science Clouds provides cloud computing resources to scientists in support of specific projects. Scientists may request time on the clouds in exchange for a short write-up of their project.

For Further Reading

The following articles and resources are recommended for those who wish to learn more about cloud computing.

How Cloud Computing is Changing the World
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2008/tc2008082_445669.htm
(Rachael King, BusinessWeek, 4 August 2008.) This article describes a perceived shift in the way we think about computing as more companies begin to use cloud-based applications for communications and productivity tasks.

The Cloudworker’s Creed
http://www.ribbonfarm.com/2008/10/23/the-cloudworkers-creed/
(Venkatesh Rao, Ribbonfarm.Com, 23 October 2008.) This blog post introduces the concept of a cloudworker, the information professional of tomorrow.

Google Gears = No More Office/OpenOffice for Students
http://education.zdnet.com/?p=2052&tag=nl.e623
(Christopher Dawson, ZDNet Education, 26 January 2009.) Google Gears synchronizes offline and online versions of blogs and documents so that authors can edit offline, where drafts are saved locally until an Internet connection is present. This article discusses some of the implications.

Use of Cloud Computing Applications and Services
http://www.pewinternet.org/PPF/r/262/report_display.asp
(John Horrigan, Pew Internet & American Life Project, 12 September 2008.) This data memo reports on the number of Internet users who are making use of cloud-based applications and services and reviews their expressed preferences.

Delicious: Cloud Computing
http://delicious.com/tag/hzk09+cloudcomputing
(Tagged by K-12 Horizon Advisory Board and friends, 2009). Follow this link to find additional resources tagged for this topic and this edition of the Horizon Report. To add to this list, simply tag resources with “hzk09” and “cloudcomputing” when you save them to Delicious.