The Cloud Computing Trend Results in Free Teaching Productivity Tools

We have been asked to read the Horizon Report 2009-10 and discuss one technology and one key trend. One key trend is Cloud Computing and one Cloud Computing technology I have used for Teaching is the free online screen recorder screen-cast-o-matic. For example, watch this demo I made of how to create a project in Visual Basic, save it and Zip the project for submission.




Free tools like screen-cast-o-matic enable Teachers to share information with students and are a big time saver. Instead of having to meet with students to discuss this, I simply send them the link and they can pause it or replay it if they are having trouble. It is wonderful!

Screen-cast-o-matic is Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), allowing the user to access the service on demand. It allows you to record up to 15 minutes for free and host it on their site, upload it to YouTube or Export it as an MP4, AVI or FLV movie. The pro version is currently $9/year and provides additional features like no watermark on export and editing tools.

Cloud computing consists not only of SaaS, but Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) which provides users a platform to which they can write their own applications on (like GoogleApps), as well as Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS), which provides an infrastructure service to the user like basic storage capabilities. Some services are Free, some are pay-per-usage. Cloud Computing is certainly a trend providing organizations with alternative or enhanced solutions to in-house systems. Private, public or hybrid clouds solutions provide different ranges of security and control over the organizations Infrastructures, Platforms and Software. If data confidentiality and total control is desired, then private cloud may be a viable solution. If there is no need to have total control over the environment and your data may not be considered confidential, then a public cloud may be a viable solution. A hybrid cloud allows the in-between use cases where your organization needs can be met.