Managing Content and Assessment in the Cloud


By Stephen Best F


or the past few years, many of us have heard more and more about the shiſt toward cloud computing, and all of the benefits and


efficiencies this would bring. Many of us are already using these tools, especially when it comes to creating or sharing content with others. Online tools like Google Docs, Flickr, and Blogger, just to name a few, provide both storage for our various types of files, and built-in soſtware that gives us functionality to create, organize, and share our information. But, what do you do when you want to put a reading in students’ hands (or on their screen)? While some tools provide “social” tools that let you comments or give feedback, these are clearly not designed for teachers to work it to manage a whole class’ work, let alone give individualized (and private) feedback to students. While there aren’t any perfect tools for this yet, especially for the free tools that many use, there are some solutions you might consider.


Managing Content In the days of textbooks (also known as the “present” to many of our colleagues), the content-oriented readings of many courses were bound into a single volume for the entire year, complete with lesson plans, resources, copy and overhead “masters” and a litany of other resources intended to support instruction and learning. Tere was no need to “manage” the content - it came from one source. Otherwise, many of the teachers who used these might also have additional readings or documents that were used to supplement the instruction with more recent readings, etc. Or, within the last decade, they likely included URLs to existing online resources that might provide


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additional information or viewpoints on the content that classes were focusing on at the time.


As time passed and the online resources became more prevalent, teachers developed ways of capturing these resources for students. Some created web pages for each topic in their curriculum, providing links to readings that might be relevant. Others used early cloud-based tools such as Delicious (www.delicious.com), a “social bookmarking” site that allows people to share sets of links. Similar sites, like Friendfeed (www.friendfeed.com), allow collections and sharing of links for articles or other online tools. Tis approach, while using the cloud, presents two specific problems for students: the linked resources are still subject to both content blocks and ads, and if students are using portable devices, such as iPods, cell phones, or “bring your own technology” tools, reading of the articles on these devices may be difficult, as these sites do not process the articles themselves. Also, review of the content requires on ongoing Internet connection - none of these tools allow for offline reading or review of content.


Alternative options Tere are a few options teachers can use to address these challenges. Newer tools, like Diigo (www.diigo.com) and Instapaper (www. instapaper.com) allow you to collect readings and other online resources with the click of a button on


Fall 2011


your browser. Tese tools then grab content from the URL you are on when you hit that button and store it with your account for later reading. Teachers can set up a class account with these tools, and simply have their students be able to access that account (without installing the plug-in for their browser that lets them grab these pages on their own, which could quickly “fill” your accounts with sites that you don’t necessarily want). Tis can all happen without students needing their own login and email address. Best yet, it removes the ad content, leaving just text and any embedded pictures. And, if your students have portable devices, there are apps for the iPod/iPad/iPhone and Android that work with these tools.


Two other options are possible, from what I consider the most invaluable cloud-based tools for educators: Evernote and Dropbox. Both of these tools do require that you have individual accounts for each of your students, but you can get these for free with a modest capacity limit. However, as you will see below, their functionality extends beyond just sharing readings and documents with students. Evernote is a cloud-based service


Evernote’s new browser window makes viewing of all of your notes available by tags, date, or other organization strategies.


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