New Perspectives in Science Education

The use of cloud computing in science education is an emerging trend that enables access to online services anywhere and assures scalability and cost savings in contrast to the conventional computational structure that requires keeping both hardware and software on organizations premises and providing respectively technical support. The cloud computing provides a variety of virtual resources (hardware, software, and services) accessible via the network. Cloud based science education can provide teachers and students with tools to use virtual computing resources (Virtual Machines) for lectures and labs on demand depending on their needs. Universities are already using cloud computing to outsource email services and data storage, or adopt high scale massive open online courses (MOOC), but it remains largely underused and can offer many other e-learning services that are computer-intensive and well suited to online education (such as video streaming, simulations or virtual worlds among many others). On the other hand using cloud computing brings new technical risks related to security, compatibility  and/or  interoperability. Adopting cloud technologies in science education presents new challenges to educational institutions how to identify such opportunities for pedagogical uses. Cloud computing is a significant alternative for educational institutions  still underutilized, but its advantages hugely outweigh the disadvantages and  adopting the new applications in science education is an exciting opportunity not to be passed over. This presentation will define the basic cloud computing concepts, models, benefits and risks. We will explore some applications of cloud technologies in undergraduate STEM education at CUNY (City University of New York).

Keywords: science education, cloud computing, e-learning, online education.

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