Teaching With the Cloud

via CampusTechnology Kuglin emphasized the ease-of-use of these tools and used them on the spot to assemble an ad hoc, cloud-based tutorial, complete with an audio file.

“These are tools that live outside the campus,” Kuglin said. “Where is all of this content? It’s actually in a data farm out in San Francisco. It’s not on this machine. I can go to any of your machines, and as long as you are connected, I could continue doing this presentation. I don’t need my laptop anymore, just a device that’s connected to the Internet. We need to get used to that idea.”

Kuglin lead his audience through several presentations created in the cloud with SlideRocket. “Those of you who are responsible for your online learning environments are already beginning to see a new model emerge here,” he said. “The cloud-based presentation package is surpassing and supplanting the PC-based, PowerPoint world. This is a huge, huge step forward.”

“Teachers need to stop saying ‘hand it in’ and start saying ‘publish it,'” he added.

To the inevitable question from his audience about objections raised by campus IT about the security of the cloud, Kuglin said, “I understand that it’s an issue, but we cannot continue to hide behind the safety issue, not if we want to offer competitive educational services. The old paradigm was university computer, university employee, university network. Boom, boom, boom; we’re secure. But the old days are gone.” [Continue Reading at CampusTechnology]