"Computing in the Clouds," is an excellent article posted on ISTE.org and written by Doug Johnson. The term "clouds," refers primarily to open-source technology/software. Doug makes a series of arguments for the pros and cons of using the cloud in schools and education. I found this article to be effective because it's unbiased nature.
Doug starts by pointing out that his article was written through the use of the cloud. He also presents a series of circumstances which lead to his use of this technology. He composed and submitted his article without the use of the primary software. Meaning instead of using Word, he used Google documents. This means that he is required to spend less to be modern. It also means that he can access his work from any computer and the computer does not require powerful computing abilities. Since the information is stored in the cloud and not on your hard drive, the hard drive is less cluttered and the home PC or laptop is therefore able to work faster and smoother. When all is said and done, it is apparent how many advantages there are to using the cloud.
To the credit of the author, there are negative implications to this as well. If educators were to fully integrate the use of this technology there are of course some drawbacks. For example, what do you do when the internet is out? How can students/parents be asked to provide for these new technological needs? How secure is the information stored online? Will there be fees in the future? These are all legitimate questions. Some of these objections may in fact be negotiable road blocks for parents. However in most cases, I feel that the risks are no more dire than those presented by having a myspace or facebook account for social networking.
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