In this series, Nicky Hockly explains aspects of technology which some people may be embarrassed to confess that they don’t really understand. In this article, she invites you to ‘join the cloud’.
1. Cloud computing? What is that? It sounds a bit, well, nebulous …
Cloud computing, or ‘the cloud’, is one of those computing buzzwords that is making its way into the mainstream media. In simple terms, it means ‘keeping your stuff online’, as opposed to ‘keeping your stuff on your computer’.
Let’s take an example: email. If you have an email account with Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail or similar, your emails are kept on the Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail servers. You log into your account and read them online. These emails are not stored on your computer, they are, rather, ‘in the cloud’: stored online in remote servers. If you have an email program such as Outlook (or similar) installed on your computer, you can download them and they are then stored on your computer itself.
2. So what has the cloud got to do with me?
Taking the email example above, you are probably already accessing or storing some of your data in the cloud – that is, online. There is an increasing move among organisations and individuals to store their data online. Just think about Facebook, Flickr (a photo sharing site) or YouTube (a video sharing site). These are all places where you can store photos and videos online.
However, it’s not just data like emails that can be stored in the cloud. Programs too can be cloud-based. Google docs, for example, is a cloud-based word processing application. You don’t need to install anything on your computer, you simply access Google docs online and save your documents online, in the cloud. If you think about it, you have probably been moving increasingly into the cloud over the last few years. If you have a Facebook account, then you’re already in it.
3 What are the advantages of keeping my stuff in the cloud?
There are technical advantages. If programs and data are stored on remote servers and not on your computer, you have more storage space, and therefore more computing power, on your own personal computer. And remember that time when your hard disk died and you lost everything because you had never got around to doing a backup? If you are storing your data in the cloud, then even if your computer crashes and never recovers, because your data is stored elsewhere it is ostensibly safe (but see below).
There are also practical advantages. If you keep your bookmarks (favourite internet sites) in an online social bookmarking service, such as Diigo or Delicious, rather than in your Firefox or Internet Explorer browser, you can access those bookmarks from any computer, not just from your home computer. No more scrambling around on the computer in the staffroom looking for that intermediate phrasal verbs online worksheet that you bookmarked, but can’t access from school because your bookmarks are only in your Internet Explorer browser at home!
4. It can’t all be good news. What’s the downside?
Privacy, for one. There is concern that data stored centrally in massive servers by organisations such as Google may be vulnerable. What happens if somebody hacks into a company’s servers and steals information? In fact, this has already happened a number of times. And what if a company that is storing your information decides to sell it on to marketers? How much control do you really have over your privacy? And, as we know, no technology is infallible. What happens if cloud servers crash and you are unable to access your online data for a period of time? And what if you decide to change cloud services, for example from Yahoo to Gmail? How easy is it really to export all of your email data to a new cloud service? What’s more, cloud services that you signed up for when they were free may suddenly start charging for their services. This famously happened with the online social network Ning in 2010, which the online educational community had invested a lot of time and effort in. Suddenly teachers found themselves having to pay to continue using their Ning networks with their students. Unsurprisingly, outrage ensued but, at the end of the day, those teachers who wanted to continue using Ning had to pay to do so.
5. How can this help me as an English language teacher?
Keeping some of your data in the cloud, such as worksheets on Google docs, or in an online storage service such as Dropbox (www.dropbox.com – highly recommended for keeping documents online) can be helpful for you as a teacher in terms of accessibility. You can access, download and print your documents from anywhere. The same goes for keeping your bookmarks in a social bookmarking service, as explained above. And for students, uploading and storing homework assignments or projects in cloud services such as Ning, Edmodo or even Facebook means they are accessible to a wider audience and are less likely to be lost as email attachments.
Despite the potential drawbacks of cloud computing, it is here to stay. At the end of the day, it’s simply more convenient. And let’s face it, convenience will usually trump caution. That’s just human nature.
Nicky Hockly has been involved in EFL teaching and teacher training since 1987. She is Director of Pedagogy of The Consultants-E, an online training and development consultancy. She is co-author of Teaching Online (DELTA Publishing), which was nominated for a 2011 British Council ELTon award. She maintains a blog at www.emoderationskills.com
This article first appeared in English Teaching professional, Issue 76, September 2011
