The Education Cloud: Delivering Education As a Service
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WHITE PAPER Intel® World Ahead Cloud Computing The Education Cloud: Delivering Education as a Service The education cloud can simplify, add value to and lower the cost of education transformations Introduction FIVE KEY ELEMENTS TO The massive proliferation of affordable computers, Internet broadband connectivity EDUCATION TraNSFORMATIONS and rich education content has created a global phenomenon in which information and The five interrelated elements communication technology (ICT) is being used to transform education. Cloud computing shown in Figure 1 have consis- is beginning to play a key role in this transformation. tently proven essential to support This paper explains how an education cloud can provide affordable and high-value successful education transforma- education services that support 21st-century skill development. Additionally, the paper tion worldwide. outlines a general framework and specific actions that can help IT decision makers and These five elements help to cre- government leaders identify and meet the needs of the education community, including ate sustainable improvements in students, teachers, parents and administrators. education — improvements that By making ICT more affordable to implement and easier to integrate into classrooms give students the best possible worldwide, education can be transformed — and students across the globe can develop opportunity to thrive in the global the critical skills they need to compete and prosper in the today’s information society. economy. Education Transformation Is a The benefits of integrating ICT into Global Phenomenon education have been established by a Education transformations can transcend variety of studies. Positive outcomes may economic and social barriers, providing include higher graduation rates, improved equal advantages and opportunities to ev- matriculation rates for higher education eryone who has access to ICT. In Portugal, and improved national academic rank- for example, it took just two years for a ings. On a broader scale, over time the nationwide effort to transform education national benefits of bringing ICT into the and achieve significant economic benefits. classroom have included improvements Computers are now available to every in GDP, worker productivity and national primary school student in the country — competitiveness, as well as new jobs and Figure 1. The five key components of education moving Portugal to the forefront of digital the cultivation of entrepreneurship and transformations education while also creating nearly 1,500 innovation.1 new jobs and adding EUR 2.26 billion to the country’s economy. Robert Fogel Principal Education Architect Intel Corporation The Education Cloud: Delivering Education as a Service Figure 2. Cloud computing provides anytime/anywhere services that can be accessed from any device. Cloud Computing Simplified From a user’s perspective, a cloud can There has been much hype about cloud make all of these (and more) services computing, and cloud computing has the available in such a way that the user does potential to play a vital role in education not have to be concerned with where transformations. But first, there remains a the services originate or even where the need to distill it into a practical, consistent, services are running. The services are just accessible framework for education. “out there” somewhere, in the cloud, and the user can access them at any time, from To understand cloud computing in the any device (see Figure 2). context of education, it helps to begin by understanding the notion of “service.” A In reality, cloud services might originate service is a type of software function or in one place but actually run on a stand- capability that is accessible anytime and alone laptop or cell phone, or on a server anywhere via a compute device such as somewhere in cyberspace. It’s also possible a laptop, desktop, handheld PDA or cell for a single service to be running on some phone. Some of the more common ex- combination of devices. Google Earth, amples of cloud services are Google Apps, for example, can run standalone on an Amazon EC2 and SalesForce.com. Other, individual laptop, but when the Earth image more generic services include wikis, blogs on the laptop has to be updated, those and e-mail. updates come from one or a combination of Google’s data centers around the world. 2 The Education Cloud: Delivering Education as a Service The Education Cloud Example of an education cloud service: To support education transformations, Student ePortfolios cloud computing can help government The ePortfolio service is just one example leaders and IT decision makers answer key of a cloud service that can be delivered to strategic questions such as: the members of an education community. • What is the quickest, most efficient and A student portfolio is a valuable record affordable way to deliver education? of a student’s academic life. The record • How do I develop students’ 21st-century may include items such as assessments, skills and prepare students for the new evaluations, assignments, homework job market? and classroom projects. These portfolios are critical for managing each student’s • How do I encourage local innovation academic progress, and — when student within a country or region? portfolios are collectively reviewed by the • How do I share resources across districts, Ministry of Education (MoE) — they can regions or the entire country? also play an important role in managing With the flexibility and affordability of the performance and progress of an entire cloud computing, it is possible to answer education system. these questions and develop education Also called electronic portfolios or digital programs and strategies that also: portfolios, ePortfolios present significant • Simplify, speed and reduce the cost of advantages over paper-based alterna- development, integration procurement, tives. One reason is their accessibility. and operation and maintenance of ICT End users — which may include students, infrastructure teachers, parents, administrators and government officials (depending on the • Capitalize on worldwide innovation of implementation) — can access ePortfolios developers at any time, from computers, cell phones • Focus on the user experience and ex- or other devices. ePortfolios can be ac- pected outcomes, not on infrastructure cessed by teachers to issue assignments, • Simplify management of vendors and by students to access assignments. A school principal can use students’ ePort- • Provide better visibility of results and im- folios to monitor the performance of the pacts, using cause-and-effect analyses school, and parents can access their own for continuous improvement child’s portfolio in order to become more involved in their child’s education. Using cloud computing, the ePortfolio service can be designed in several ways. For instance, the service can run as a standalone service on a laptop, without connectivity. The service can also run from local school servers, from an MoE data center or from a third-party services provider that is accessed via the Internet. 3 The Education Cloud: Delivering Education as a Service Figure 3. An education cloud includes both user services and IT services Building an Education Cloud User services One of the first steps in building a cloud The “user services” shown in Figure 3 solution is identifying the “layers” of the illustrate a few of the many education- cloud, which include user services and IT specific and generic services the educa- services (see Figure 3). When you com- tion community can access from devices municate with vendor service providers, such as laptops and PDAs. these services and their associated pa- It is important to create a “services cata- rameters need to be defined in a request log” that lists the user services that are for proposal (RFP) or similar document. needed in each education community. The services catalog — which may include a phased deployment plan, if some services need to be added over time — should be provided to vendors so that they know which user services they need to deliver. 4 The Education Cloud: Delivering Education as a Service A services catalog can include education- User services also include generic ser- specific user services such as: vices, which often work with and support EDUCATION SerVICES AVaiLabLE • An eAssessment service for managing education services. As shown in Figure ONLINE 3, these generic services include e-mail student assessments Intel AppUp Center The Intel and social networks. For example, an AppUp Center at www.appup.com/ • Grade book, roster, lesson plan and class- ePortfolio service might employ an e-mail applications provides a resource room management services for teachers service as the primary interface between center and catalogue for cloud- • Content management services that the ePortfolio and its users. A student based mobile services. This site can teachers use to assign curriculum con- could then receive assignments from the also serve as a model for how an tent to students and that students use ePortfolio service via e-mail, and when education services catalog could be to access the assigned content the assignment is completed, the student created for the development and could send the completed assignment • An online community service that teach- distribution of education cloud ser- back via e-mail. ers use to interact with peers and share vices. Another example of a catalog lesson plans Users can also access generic services of education