Thing 7 - Working in the Cloud

Added by Kendra K. Levine, last edited by Kendra K. Levine on Jun 12, 2009  (view change)

The 7 Things!

Thing 1 - Blogging
Thing 2 - RSS Feeds
Thing 3 - Photo Sharing
Thing 4 - Social Bookmarking
Thing 5 - Social Networking
Thing 6 - Wikis
Thing 7 - Working in the Cloud

SLA TRAN 7 Things
Web 2.0 Tools to Use

SLA TRAN 7 Things was inspired by Learning 2.0 from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenberg County by Helene Blowers, which is licensed under Creative Commons. The Skokie Ten from the Skokie Public Library, and the SLA 23 Things.

Thing 7 - Working in the Cloud


Photo courtesy of MichaelMarlatt

What exactly is Cloud Computing? "Working in the cloud" doesn't really explain things because it doesn't actually define the "cloud". The "cloud" is basically the Internet and having documents and applications live remotely on servers, not on your individual computer. Here is a video explaining cloud computing. Why does cloud computing matter? For one thing, you are no longer tethered to a particular machine. If you work on multiple computers (work, home, laptop, whatever), working in the cloud enables you to access your documents and remain productive from any location with internet access.

Working in the "cloud" is the backbone of Web 2.0. Some examples of applications that are in the "cloud" are:

  • Dropbox to store files and applications remotely.
  • Zoho is a suite of applications that all operate on the server.
  • Google Docs is another suite of applications, only in the Google family.
  • Evernote lets you keep track of things across different machines and platforms (including smart phones).
  • Zotero is a citation management tool that can sync your citations over the server.

For Thing 7 we'll focus on Google Docs.
To get started:

  1. Go to Google Docs and log in with your Google Account.
  2. Make a new document. Try it out! How does it work?
  3. Save the document and share it with somebody.
  4. Blog about your experience or comment here!

Finished them all? Congratulations! You've graduated the SLA TRAN 7 Things course! Email Kendra K. Levine that you've finished the 7 Things to be entered in the prize drawing.

And keep playing!

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