“I wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high o’er vales and hills, when all at once I saw a crowd, a host, of golden daffodils”, the famous lines from William Wordsworth’s poem have been haunting me lately, although in the context of an education ‘cloud’ rather than the literal one. As we move into a decade of computing independent of devices – computers, handhelds, ipads, mobiles – where our relationship with the internet, data and communications moves from being about ownership and licensing, to one of rental, collaboration and remoteness, the case for a British Education Cloud has never been greater.
‘Cloud’ services have been around since the 1960s. ‘Cloud’ computing, i.e. the selling of excess computer power really became established in 2006 when Amazon Web Services started offering excess from its stacks to businesses at a spot rate. Google & IBM started offering the same in 2007 and Microsoft joined them in 2008. Within the last two decades we have shifted from mainframe computers accessible from ‘dumb’ terminals (no network); to server & PC based computing (with a local area network, LAN) to a Cloud & Browser scenario (essentially a wide area network,WAN).
Cloud Plus
Even my own needs have changed. My web servers are rented, my back-up is done remotely. Why pay for a big hard disk and back-up when I can rent capacity from Flickr (Yahoo-owned) and Picasaweb (Google-owned) for storage of pictures and video? I can use services like Plaxo as a web-based contact database. I can use Google products for spreadsheets and documents. The iPhone (Apple-owned) has an app to help me locate places, my phone has a voice messaging and my netbook allows me an email-to-SMS service to let my host know if I am running late for a meeting. Location based services let me find the nearest coffee place, bus or train station and friendly face if need be. And, of course, I can shop for anything online and frequently do. All this is way beyond the basics of cloud computing. This is ‘Cloud’ Plus, and them some!
The one area that the freedom of device-independent computing has not penetrated is Britain’s primary and secondary schools. Too many still have computers in specific computer labs, electronic whiteboards which are used only as blackboard and Management Information Systems (MIS) that the management don’t know how to use. The array of products and services available to Head Teachers, IT purchasers and Teachers is so bewildering that a chasm is opening up between those that understand technology, embrace it and use it to make their lives easier….and those that don’t.
Interestingly, children adapt to this new environment quite readily. They are comfortable being able to do homework, chat online and play a computer game all from the same Nintendo, or games console. They may not appreciate the complexity of the services they are using but they like the convenience.
This raises the question of how Britain should develop its educational curriculum, services and teaching given that the methods for learning have changed. Of course, there are already several suppliers offering ‘cloud’- like services: either IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service), PaaS (Platform as a Service) or SaaS (Software as a Service). Virtual Learning Environments (like Moodle) are increasingly becoming popular and higher-learning organisations like The Open University have been keen to embrace them.
Cradle to grave ICT
Is the concept of ‘Cradle to Grave’ ICT coming every closer? For Britain’s 7 million primary and secondary school pupils and its 500,000 teachers and teaching assistants, the concept of “cradle to grave” ICT in a cloud that they don’t have to specify or take care off would be a real boost.
Children and young adults would love the concept of a personalised online space in which they can upload and download work; get appraisals from teachers, collaborate on projects with their friends; an account that could build and grow with them as they move between schools and into higher education. Parents already value the ability to have online assessments of their children’s work, without the worry of having to monitor and track activities of their kids on a daily basis. At present the under 18 generation on average have greater skills than their parents anyway. If all this is sounding like a “Facebook for schools” then I have failed to explain that this type of personalised space currently does not exist. It could very easily come into being, by ensuring that different providers collaborated on a single canvas – Britain’s Education Cloud – that is owned by UK Plc.
A May 2009 DataMonitor report for the USA market compared the commercial customer relationship management (CRM) software offered by Salesforce.com to the use of learning management solutions (LMS) in higher education. Salesforce services are understood in the commercial arena and the company’s turnover recently topped $1Billion from its 55,400 customers. In higher education, LMS and student information systems are virtually a no-go area for vendors, until now. A recession, rapidly changing technology and new products and services are making everyone look at these ‘on-demand’ delivery models.
The business landscape has already embraced the benefits of cloud computing, namely:
– a rental model requiring low capital investment,
– low cost per user
– management expertise retained
– low maintenance costs
– low upgrade costs
– no specification required (built-in standards) for proprietary software.
Cloud services are scalable, robust, modularised. There a broad range of platforms & applications available so it is very suited to both to both Open Source & proprietary software. There are relatively low barriers to entry for new and innovative products and the process generally has a lower risk than developing in-house products and services.
However, for Britain’s Education sector, alas, all this is very much “pie in the sky” (or should that be a fluffy cloud in the sky?). The new UK coalition Government wants to free schools and head teachers to buy what they like, from whomever they want without any intervention (or more importantly, funding) from central Government. While this is commendable, it relies on users actually knowing what they need (most surveys indicate the sector doesn’t really understand today’s technology, let alone tomorrow’s) and flies counter to the need for openness and sharing, while at the same time being secure and long-lasting. Schools are often “locked in” with the services provider that they choose, so most opt for the lowest-risk option rather than the best one.
In “cloud land”, what is currently happening is the development of a series of mini clouds being offered by big US companies like Amazon, Google and Microsoft who are all fighting for the largest slice of the marketplace. In the long run this will stifle innovation (open source relies very much on developers sharing their intellectual property), lead to increased commercial use of data on children and create barriers to entry for smaller companies and new products. Ultimately it will also result in a bigger bill in a decade’s time.
Suggesting centralisation like developing a canvas for Britain’s Education Cloud is currently an anathema to politicians. But is playing into the hands of big (often foreign) commercial concerns really the best answer? No “host of golden daffodils” for the right answer, alas.