Abstract:

This paper presents developments and activities of a new ICT Network called School on the Cloud. The network connects to all aspects of education and training. The initiative was launched in the 1st European Summit: ‘Education on the Cloud’ which took place at the Dais Conference Center in Athens, Greece on March 22, 2014.

School on the Cloud is an ICT network aiming to explore new dynamic ways to educate. The goal is to align education with the way we think, share, learn and collaborate, across various education sectors, by exploiting the opportunities arising from “Cloud” environments.

Cloud computing enables:
1) easy access to high-speed networks is empowering individuals to access and use ICT globally.
2) the scaling up of online education
3) access to elastic, on demand services.

To explore the potential of the Cloud in education, the network ‘School on Cloud’ (SoC) has been created, consisting of 57 partners from 18 European countries. School on the Cloud addresses three key questions:
i) how should education respond and
ii) what is the impact on education stakeholders and
iii) what will it be in the future?

This is being investigated by 4 different work groups
1. Transition from ground to Cloud: sharing experiences of issues related to leadership and management in different educational contexts. These can be technological, social, economic, cultural and pedagogical. They may necessitate training and development, guidance and advice.
2. i-Teacher: role of the teacher: looking at learning and teaching issues connected with Cloud-based learning. It examines the barriers and key competences required. It explores teachers as innovators. iTeacher reviews learning and teaching approaches and provides practical and essential guidance for teachers and teacher educators.
3. Integrating the Cloud: exploring the opportunities and issues that access to learning afforded by the Cloud in personalising learning experiences 'at any time, any place by any one'. This concerns teachers and educators, schools, colleges and adult education providers and involves understanding the possibility to exploit the opportunities resulting from both formal and informal learning situations.
4. Future prospects: dealing with topics like the impact of open (education) resources, the availability of free and available information, new generation tools for the Cloud, communicating and publishing on the Cloud and the resultant issues such as ethics and IPR. It will target organisations such as teacher associations, NGOs, publishing organisations, museums, libraries, researchers, Ministries and policy makers.

The presentation will look at the aims and activities of the network, report on results of recent research undertaken of the state of the art and examine future planned activities.

Keywords:

Cloud Computing, innovation, teaching, learning, futures, management, network.