Thing 45: Cloud Computing

I must admit to not being familiar with the term "cloud computing" - but to being very aware of the services. I've been using Google docs and Zoho for a long time (as well as several other sites). I do two things in particular with these sites.

1. I use them to share documents with others - or to give them access to my documents. 

This is such a great way to collaborate on a project - but also is a super way to share pictures and video - which are often too large to send through email.

2. I use them to store or provide a backup for special projects or presentation.

It's great to know that even if my laptop AND my flash drive fail me I can always get to my presentations because I've stored them online. I don't think I've ever really had to use this backup, but I do know that I feel much more secure knowing it's there!

In my media center I use "n computing" with several monitors all connected to one PC. The processor allows all students (we use 7 on one setup and 3 on the other) to access the information and work without realizing they don't actually have a computer at all: they are sharing one cpu.

I also consider Delicious to be "cloud computing" when used by a group of teachers to create a shared list of resources. I've taught my grade level teachers how to do this and they have found it a great way to save their links and let their peers (and their students) view them. They can organize them using the tags available - and it's been a really great organizational tool.