How Cloud-Based Technologies Change the Future of Education?
Introduction
Cloud computing is a model of service delivery for enabling ubiquitous, convenient, on-demand network access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources (e.g., networks, servers, storage, applications, and services) that can be rapidly provisioned and released with minimal management effort or service provider interaction. It is an approach to providing “computing as a utility”. Cloud computing is based on virtualization, automation, and on demand self-service. Cloud computing can be defined as a model for enabling information technology (IT) resources to be provided as a service over the Internet.
The term “cloud computing” was first coined in 1999 by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States to describe a new model of computing in which shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices on demand, like the electricity grid. The cloud computing model is a distributed computing model in which resources are dynamically allocated and deallocated according to the needs of the end users.
In recent years, cloud computing has become one of the hottest topics in information technology. Cloud-based services have been widely used in many fields, such as e-commerce, e-government, and e-learning. For example, cloud-based learning management systems (LMSs) have been used in colleges and universities to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Cloud services have also been applied in the field of e-health, where cloud computing is used to store, process, and analyze large amounts of medical data. In addition, cloud services can also be used in the fields of big data and Internet of Things (IoT).
With the rapid development of cloud computing technology, more and more cloud services are being used in education. In this paper, we will discuss the benefits of using cloud computing in education, and we will also introduce some of the most popular cloud services for education. We hope that this paper will help readers to better understand the application of cloud services in education and to make better use of these services in their own work. The rest of this paper is organized as follows.
What Is Cloud Computing
As mentioned above, the term “Cloud Computing” was coined by the NIST in 1999. The NIST defined cloud computing as “a new model for IT service delivery, in which computing resources are shared among multiple tenants via a virtualized abstraction of the underlying physical infrastructure and delivered over the network”. Figure 1 shows the definition of cloud. According to this definition, a cloud is a collection of shared computing resources that are accessible over a network and that are managed by a third-party provider. The resources in a cloud can be physical or virtual, and they can be located anywhere in the world. In a cloud computing environment, the user does not need to manage or control the underlying cloud infrastructure. Instead, the cloud infrastructure is managed by the cloud service provider, and the user only needs to control the applications and services that are running on top of the infrastructure. A cloud computing service is a service that is provided to the users via the Internet. The users can access the service via a web browser or an application programming interface (API). The users do not have to install any software or hardware on their own computers to use the service. The service provider provides all the software and hardware that are needed to run the service, so the users only need to pay for the resources that they use.
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