A Review of Cloud-based Futures and Methodologies

543221–LLP–1–2013–1–GR-KA3- KA3NW 1 School on the Cloud D5.1
A Review of
Cloud-based Futures and
Methodologies
May 2015
SchoolontheCloud.eu
School on the Cloud: Connecting Education to the Cloud for Digital Citizenship
543221-LLP-1-2013-1-GR-KA3-KA3NW

Deliverable Title: A Review of Cloud-based Futures and Methodologies, Working Group 4
Deliverable Nr: 5.1
Date: 01/05/2015
Version: 2.0
Dissemination Level: Public
Author: Prof. K. Koutsopoulos (Leader WG4: i-Future)
Contributors: Sylvia Ciaperoni (Cesie), Yannis Kotsanis (Doukas School)
Project Title: School on the Cloud (SoC)
Project Nr: 543221–LLP–1–2013–1–GR-KA3- KA3NW
Project Start Date: January 1, 2014
Duration: 36 months
European Commission: Lifelong Learning Program - ICT Key Action 3 European Project
This project has been funded with support from the European Commission, Lifelong Learning
Programme of the European Union. This publication reflects the views only of the author, and the
Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained
therein.

“School on Cloud: Connecting Education to the Cloud for Digital
Citizenship”
European Commission: Lifelong Learning Program
ICT Key Action 3 European Project
543221–LLP–1–2013–1–GR-KA3- KA3NW
A Review of Cloud-based Futures and Methodologies
Working Group 4: Deliverable 5.1
Author: Prof. K. Koutsopoulos
Leader WG4
Contributors: Sylvia Ciaperoni (5.2.2 & 6.3)
Yannis Kotsanis (9)
Due date of deliverable : 31/01/2015 (Version 1.0)
Final date of deliverable: 01/05/2015 (Version 2.0)
Start date of project : January 1, 2014
Duration : 36 months
Dissemination Level : Public
Abstract: As technology has become an agent of immense change, it has forced upon the
education system Cloud Computing which in the future will have significant ripple effect. The
description and evaluation of these effects represent one of the principal goals of the School on
the Cloud Network and is expressed in this document whose main objective is to review Cloud
based futures and methodologies. That is, responding to the need for examining future
enhancements of this technology on education this document presents a review of state-of-the-
art research on the future of Cloud based education and elaborates on foresight methods and
their application within the working plan of the School on the Cloud Network.
With the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme of the European Union

In order to connect education to the Cloud and to explore how education should respond to
new ICT developments in the form of cloud computing, there is a need to narrow the
existing divide between education and Cloud computing. That is, we are in need of
developing guidelines for the education sector as well as examining future enhancements of
this technology on education. The last goal is the objective of this document whose aim is to
review cloud based futures and methodologies.
The document in addition to the introduction (section 1) and conclusion (sections7) has two
parts:
 The first one presents, evaluates and synthesizes the major factors involved in the School
on Cloud Network. More specifically, it presents a short description of the goals,
objectives and the working plan of the School on the Cloud network (section 2), a
synthesized overview of Cloud Computing (section 3) and provides a comprehensive
view of the future developments of cloud-based applications in education (section 4).
 The second elaborates on foresight methods as they relate to the School on the Cloud
network. More specifically, it presents a synthesized description of methods available in
accomplishing such foresight efforts (section 5) and an elaborate description of the
methods chosen for the network's foresight exercise as well as the preparation and
follow-up activities of that application that will be run at the School on the Cloud
network general meeting in Palermo Italy (section 6)

TABLE OF CONTENTS
...........................................................................................................................................4
.............................................................................................................................7
.................................................................................9
2.1 School on the Cloud (SoC): A European Digital Citizenship Network...............................9
2.2 Working Group 4 of SoC.....................................................................................................10
....................................................................................................................11
3.1 Overview...............................................................................................................................11
3.2 Essential Characteristics.....................................................................................................11
3.2.1 On-demand self-service ...............................................................................................12
3.2.2 Broad network access ..................................................................................................12
3.2.3 Resource pooling..........................................................................................................12
3.2.4 Rapid elasticity..............................................................................................................12
3.2.5 Measured service..........................................................................................................12
3.3 Forms of Services................................................................................................................12
3.3.1 Software as a Service (SaaS)......................................................................................13
2.3.2 Platform as a Service (PaaS) ......................................................................................13
3.3.3 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)................................................................................13
3.4 Deployment or Cloud Computing Types............................................................................14
3.4.1 Private Cloud.................................................................................................................15
....................................................................................17
4.1 What Cloud Computing Brings to Education .....................................................................17
4.2 Trends in Society .................................................................................................................21
4.3 Trends in Technology..........................................................................................................23
4.4 Trends in Education.............................................................................................................24
4.5 Innovation .............................................................................................................................31
4.6 Challenges for the Future of Education .............................................................................34

............................................................................37
5.1 Foresight...............................................................................................................................37
5.1.1 Nature ............................................................................................................................37
5.1.2 Purpose..........................................................................................................................38
5.1.3 View ...............................................................................................................................39
5.1.4 Process..........................................................................................................................39
5.2 Methods Chosen..................................................................................................................40
5.2.1 Delphi Method...............................................................................................................41
5.2.2 Six Thinking Hats..........................................................................................................44
5.2.3 Brainstorming ................................................................................................................48
..............................................................49
6.1 Overview...............................................................................................................................49
6.2 Application of the Delphi Method........................................................................................51
6.2.1 Procedure ......................................................................................................................51
6.3 Application of the Six Thinking Hats...................................................................................56
6.3.1 Procedure ......................................................................................................................56
6.3.2 Imaginary Thinking Hats: How and When to use the Hats........................................57
6.4 Application of the Brainstorming Approach .......................................................................61
6.4.1 Process..........................................................................................................................61
6.4.2 Brainstorming persona .................................................................................................62
.............................................................................................................................64
...............................................................................................................................66
...........................................................................................................................71
9.1 Methods-Methodology.............................................................................................................71
9.2 Foresight General....................................................................................................................77
9.3 Delphi methods........................................................................................................................79
9.4 Modified Delphi ........................................................................................................................81
9.5 Six Thinking Hats.....................................................................................................................84
9.6 Expert Panel.............................................................................................................................85
9.7 Cloud education Around the World ........................................................................................85
9.8 Future of Education .................................................................................................................86
9.9 Future of Cloud Computing.....................................................................................................90

The purpose of education is to successfully prepare students for the future, and therefore we cannot
continue educating them in ways that address education and market needs of the past (Fullan and
Langworthy, 2013). The world has changed in ways that are not always easy to understand so it is
difficult to accurately predict the future needs, and prepare students for these changes and needs.
Thus, a new, fresh, authentic, unbounded, and exciting educational approach is needed to educate
students for the complex and challenging future (Gialamas et.al.,2013). This implies radical changes
in the needs of teaching, learning, managing and leading in education. The question then is clear and
unambiguous: what will the future in education be and how can we go about determining it? In
particular there is a need to find a way in designing an environment of engagement with creativity
and innovation which should be the educational norm and not the exception.
Moreover, all educational institutions must inspire their students to develop the wisdom to
transform their educational experience into social, economic, environmental, intellectual and ethical
resources to improve their life. That is, academic institutions, now more than ever, have to provide
educational opportunities and experiences which must shift the education process in ways that alter
the approaches we catalyze learning and innovation as well as the ways which complement and
enrich the individual’s personal learning space.
In response to these perspectives, the networked information economy has emerged which is
unleashing two powerful forces on education. First, easy access to high-speed networks is
empowering individuals to access and use ICT. People, as prosumers, can now discover, consume and
produce information resources and services globally. Furthermore, applications combined with new
social computing approaches are inviting people to share in the creation and ownership of and
learning from information on emerging virtual environments. Second, ubiquitous access to high-
speed networks along with open standards and content, and techniques for virtualization is making it
possible to leverage education through scale economies in unprecedented ways. What appears to be
emerging are the ability for large-scale computing, high network bandwidth, huge data storage and
protection, and many related services.
Cloud computing can fulfill all these capabilities because it represents a fundamental change in the
way computing power is generated and distributed. It should be evident that this technology can be
a powerful way to apply a new student-centered approach. Indeed as Microsoft (2012) has declared
“With Cloud computing in education, you get powerful software and massive computing resources
where and when you need them (and we may add in any way you desire, in order to apply new
educational approaches)... Cloud services can be used to combine on-demand computing and
storage, familiar experience with on-demand scalability and online services for anywhere, anytime
access to powerful web-based tools.”
Indeed demand for the expanded use of technology in education to raise academic achievement
comes from virtually all constituents, from European agencies, national governments, local school
boards, teachers, parents, and students themselves. Tablets, notebooks and other mobile devices
take learning out of computer labs and libraries and put it directly into student’s hands. Developing
digital curricula allows teachers to create new levels of interactivity that are ideal for individual and
group learning, developing core competences, STEM and language immersion. Mobile devices open
up a universe of possibilities for science labs, distance learning, and student-centered projects.
Teachers have new ways to assess students’ individual progress and needs and if necessary provide
additional instruction to students before they fall significantly behind.
In sum, much of the literature (Johnson, 2012; Bradshaw et al., 2012; Miller, 2009) indicates that on
the one hand these ideas have been taken into serious consideration. But on the other hand and

most importantly many issues need to be resolved and a better understanding of them have to be
achieved.
From this brief discussion it should be evident that there is a need to connect education to the Cloud
and to explore how education should respond to new ICT developments in the form of cloud
computing that are rapidly transforming the world of education. That is, to narrow the existing divide
between education and Cloud computing by developing guidelines for the education sector, by
encouraging collaboration and knowledge exchange as well as examining future enhancements of
this technology on education. The last goal is within the general objective of this document whose
goal is to review cloud based futures and methodologies. The document in addition to the
introduction and conclusion has two parts. The first one presents, evaluates and synthesizes the
major factors involved in the project, namely the School on Cloud network (SoC) (section 2), the
Cloud Computing (section 3) and their future developments (section 4). The second part elaborates
on foresight, the available methods in accomplishing such efforts and the methods chosen for the
SoC network (section 5), as well as the application of the chosen methods including the preparation
and follow-up activities of the workshop to be run at the SoC general meeting in Palermo Italy (
section 6).

2.1 School on the Cloud (SoC): A European Digital Citizenship Network
The needs, considerations and ideas presented previously, were shared by many ICT experts and
educators, some of which had an opportunity in a CEDEFOP study visit for ICT in education in Spain
on April 2012, to discuss issues and initiatives in their countries related to the emergence of Cloud
technologies and the plethora of mobile apps and tools available for education. These discussions
resulted in the idea for the School on Cloud (SoC) network proposal by a core group of partners. The
group continued these discussions in a preliminary meeting held at Doukas School in Athens (the
coordinating institution and a very innovative Greek school) in November of 2012, in order to clarify
the goals, products and needs the SoC network should address and how it would operate. Based on
these, a proposal was submitted and approved creating The School on Cloud: connecting education
to the Cloud for digital citizenship network (SoC Network).
The SoC network started in a summit meeting in March of 2014 seeking to explore how education
should respond to the new ICT developments in the form of Cloud–based applications that are
rapidly transforming our society, including education. The aim is to overcome the existing divide
between education and Cloud computing. That is, a basic objective of the SoC network is to evaluate
the state of the art, by examining and assessing a wide range of topics related to Cloud education
such as: tools, methodologies, pedagogical issues and visions. More specifically SoC aims to:
 Address the impact Cloud computing will likely have on the management of education
institutions (schools, universities, VETs, Adult Education Providers etc)
 Identify methods and approaches to teaching and learning with the Cloud-based technologies
 Promote Cloud-based tools and digital educational content, relating its use to key competences
 Collect, validate and widely disseminate the use of digital content
 Encourage teachers and educators to innovate, using digital technology and resources creatively
Moreover, the SoC network seeks to achieve its goal and objectives by addressing the following two
key questions: How should education respond to cloud-based technologies? What is the impact, now
and in the future, on education stakeholders and teachers?
Indeed these goals and objectives are achievable because, as learning becomes increasingly digital,
online access becomes the necessary vehicle for the emerging Cloud-based developments (Donert,
2013) and thus offers a new integrated way to access and administer education. This is an approach
that aligns with the way we think, share, learn and collaborate outside the classroom, which in turn
allows education to bring into learning: dynamic, interactive, multimedia and learning activities. That
is to say, teachers can track individuals and groups and assess how a topic or lesson has been
received, while students are able to work in teams, collect shared data, and organize information –
regardless of time, date or physical location. In this way Cloud-based activities offer an opportunity
to transform the role of both ends of pedagogy - teachers and students – as it helps young people to
access any learning at any place and any time from any teacher with the right expertise.
However, selecting, implementing and managing Cloud-based services, school-wide collaborative
tools, educational forms etc. are not easy tasks. Although the future of education and learning is
expected to be in the Cloud, there remain many issues to be resolved related to their interface
during that transition (Donert and Bonanou, 2014). That is to say, that although there is a rich

production of research projects and applications on the future of Education on one hand and on
Cloud computing on the other, each area has been examined individually with no real concern for
their interaction. The literature has yet to provide answers to issues concerning the future of their
interface. In other words, presently there is a need for examining the future of Cloud based
Education, which has to address both areas as they are combined and interact.
2.2 Working Group 4 of SoC
One of the most pivotal aspects of ICT developments has been the difficulty to examine mid- to long-
term future perspectives. In response to that need and within the SoC framework of a combined
approach to Cloud based Education, Working Group 4 (WG 4) is charged with examining “Future
scenarios for Education on the Cloud”. The goal of this group is thus to examine a series of issues
related to the future of the interface between education and Cloud Computing, which justifies the
purpose of this report.
More specifically, the objectives and deliverables of WG 4 are to:
 Review state-of-the-art research on the Cloud and produce a research report on the state of the
art and methodologies of “futures” thinking (Deliverable: D5.1).
 Use the partner conference to examine significant issues affecting the use of the Cloud
Computing in education and create a report on scenarios for the future (Deliverable: D5.2). The
aim of this is to develop scenarios built around carefully constructed plots based on trends,
towards the balanced thinking about a number of possible alternative futures.
 Create a series of press releases on the power of the Cloud and the potential and drawbacks (such
as ethics, IPR) to raise the profile of the work of the network to a broad audience (Deliverable:
D5.3).
 Prepare and run a workshop on futures at the second summit conference (Deliverable: D5.4).

3.1 Overview
In order to appreciate the SoC approach the concept of cloud computing needs to be to fully
understood and how its components can be utilized in the operation of such an approach. There
seems to be many definitions of cloud computing around. The global management consulting firm of
McKinsey found that there are 22 possible separate definitions of cloud computing, none of them
dealing with educational concerns. In fact, no common standard or definition for cloud computing
seems to exist (Grossman, 2009; Voas and Zhang, 2009). However, despite the many definitions and
the various terms suggested by many computer experts and Cloud users, the concept of Cloud
Computing can be described as an ICT technology that can be fully determined in a three dimensional
space consisting of the characteristics axis, the type of service axis and the form of deployment axis
(Fig. 1), axes that are integral parts of SoC (Mell and Grance 2011).
Figure 1: Cloud Computing Framework
More specifically, Cloud Computing possesses five essential characteristics (On demand service,
Network access, Resource pooling, Rapid elasticity and Measured service) (Schouten. 2014) that
can provide ubiquitous, rapid, convenient and with minimal management effort or service provider
interaction, three forms of services (Infrastructure, Platform and a Software) that can be deployed in
four fundamental types of Cloud framework (Private, Community, Public and Hybrid) (NIST, U.S
Department of Commerce, 2013). Creating in this way a framework which can successfully serve and
support the SoC approach to education.
3.2 Essential Characteristics

Cloud computing poses the following five, termed by the US NIST, essential
characteristics:
3.2.1 On-demand self-service
A customer can obtain computing capabilities, such as server time and network
storage, as needed (on demand) automatically without requiring human interaction
with each service
3.2.2 Broad network access
Capabilities are available over the network and accessed through standard
mechanisms that promote use by various platforms (e.g., mobile phones, tablets,
laptops, and workstations).
3.2.3 Resource pooling
The provider offers computing resources that are pooled to serve many customers
using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources dynamically
assigned and reassigned according to customer demand.
3.2.4 Rapid elasticity
Capabilities can be elastically provided and released, in some cases automatically, to
respond to demand. To the customer, the capabilities available may appear unlimited
and can be appropriated in any quantity at any time.
3.2.5 Measured service
Cloud systems automatically control and optimize resource use appropriate to the
type of service needed (e.g., storage, processing, bandwidth, and active user
accounts). Resource usage can be monitored, controlled, and reported, providing
transparency for both the provider and the customer of the service.
It should be evident that all these characteristics have a direct application to the SoC
approach, for e- education cannot be achieved without: multitasking, the ability to
handle a large number of users and applications, the need for flexibility as well as the
ability to meet changing demands.
3.3 Forms of Services
The providers of Cloud computing offer three fundamental forms of services: the
Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), the Platform as a Service (PaaS), and the
Software as a Service (SaaS). Between them there is a pecking order, where IaaS
is the most basic and each higher form of service abstracts from the details of the
lower form as shown on Fig.2. Of course in the literature many other services have
been proposed such as: Strategy-as-a-Service, Collaboration-as-a-Service, Business
Process-as-a-Service, Database-as-a-Service, Network-as-a-Service (NaaS) and
Communication-as-a-Service (CaaS) some of which have been accepted by the ITU

(International Telecommunication Union). However, all of these are derivatives and
not as fundamental as the following:
Figure 2: Forms of Services
3.3.1 Software as a Service (SaaS)
It is the most basic form of Cloud services and offers users computers (physical or
more often virtual machines as well as other resources) Basically, by using software
as a service (SaaS) applications are accessible from various users devices such as a
client interface (e.g. web-based email), or a program interface.
2.3.2 Platform as a Service (PaaS)
In this form of service Cloud providers offer the users the capability to deploy onto
the cloud infrastructure consumer-created or acquired applications. This way users
as application developers can develop and run their software solutions on a cloud
platform without the cost and complexity of buying and managing the underlying
hardware and software layers.
3.3.3 Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)
The providers of IaaS services offer the user capabilities such as processing, storage
and networks as well as other fundamental computing resources. This way the user
is able to deploy and run arbitrary software, which can include operating systems and
applications software on the cloud infrastructure.
Cloud Computing allows all categories of education users (students, teachers and
administrators) to access stored files, e-mail, database and other applications from

anywhere on request (Nicholson, 2009). This reaffirms that the forms of services
provided by Cloud Computing can be successfully utilized by the SoC approach to
education. However for a successful application of SoC, access to software and
databases on-demand, as well as capabilities such as provision of processing,
storage, networks and other computing resources are not common to all the
participants of the education system (see Fig. 3).
Figure 3: Capabilities of Education Stakeholders
As a result it is necessary to identify the form, the type and the provider of service, in
order to be efficient from the point of view of costs and capabilities, but mainly in
terms of satisfying the specific needs of students, staff and administration of the
institution.
3.4 Deployment or Cloud Computing Types
Cloud deployment is a composition of at least four distinct Cloud Computing types
(private, community, public and hybrid, Fig. 4) that represent unique cloud
infrastructures which theoretically are bound together by standardized or proprietary
technology so they can provide data and application portability (however, much more
needs to be done to achieve true portability).

Figure 4 Deployment or Computing Types
3.4.1 Private Cloud
A private Cloud is a computing type infrastructure provisioned and operated for the
exclusive use of a single organization, comprising multiple consumers (e.g., business
units) operating in different flexible ways. That is, it can be: managed internally, by a
third-party or some combination of them; hosted internally or externally; operated by
the organization or a third party
3.4.2 Community Cloud
This Cloud Computing type shares the infrastructure between several members of a
specific community of users or organizations who share common concerns (e.g.,
mission, security requirements, policy, and compliance considerations). This type of
infrastructure, as the previous one, operates in different flexible ways
3.4.3 Public Cloud
This type of Cloud computing exists when the infrastructure or the services are
rendered over a network that is open for use by the general public. This type may be
also owned, managed, and operated by a business, academic, or government
organization, or some combination of them. It can also exist on or outside the
premises of the Cloud provider.
3.4.4 Hybrid Cloud
This type of Cloud Computing is a composition of two or more distinct cloud
infrastructures (private, community, or public) from different service providers, which
although they remain unique entities at the same time they are bound together by
standardized or proprietary technology which enables data and application portability.

In terms of the SoC approach with the exception of the private cloud all the other
computing types can be utilized. The choice depends on its goals, conditions and
requirements.
To summarize, Cloud Computing not only represent the appropriate tool to use in the
SoC and it qualifies as an ideal environment for its support and development, but
SoC can became the basis for determining the future of education. That is to say,
although all stakeholders of the education system already use many of the
capabilities of Cloud technology in their personal lives (Ercan, 2010), in their
education environment they require additional capabilities. This may indicate the road
towards the future, more specifically, we should consider what the future of education
will be and how the advantages of Cloud Computing can help in providing students
with the ability to work and communicate without taking into account space and time.
Concerning the teaching staff, we should consider how in the future they will receive
the benefits of unlimited support in: preparing their teaching portfolio (presentations
of lessons, conferences, articles, etc.), teaching practice (methods and teaching
techniques, study materials, feedback) and evaluating (methods and techniques of
evaluation and management) of the results? Finally, how the leader/expert can be
provided with the ability to express his visions and design them as well as the
manager who should implement and evaluate an integrated educational Cloud
framework?
All these questions of course concern the objectives of WG 4 and represent the
foresight part of the SoC project which is examined next.

The world is changing by getting both smaller and bigger at the same time. The world
shrinks for technology allows us to communicate with anyone at any place around
the world. Conversely, the explosion of available information expands our view of the
world. The ability to communicate globally and το handle the information explosion
requires the role of education to adapt. The challenge is to prepare the children of
today for a world that has yet to be created, for jobs yet to be invented, and for
technologies yet undreamed.
In addition, the basic dictum that “Technology changes, Education survives”
signifies the role of education as a societal necessity and the need to project recent
and expected technology developments into the future, in order to explore their
potential implications to education. ICT changes, in the form of Cloud-based
technologies, provide the power to fundamentally change how education
stakeholders’ cooperate and collaborate. As a result the SoC concept substantiates
the ability of the education community to use these changes to adapt the whole
system of education. However, if we accept that the SoC presents a tool and an
opportunity to redefine the role Cloud Computing plays in implementing an education
strategy. Then the basic goal of its Working Group 4 which is focusing on future
scenarios for Education on the Cloud and the reason for this report is to evaluate the
current use and examine the future evolutionary path of cloud-based applications in
education.
4.1 What Cloud Computing Brings to Education
Experience and the literature (IBM 2013; Gaytos, 2012; Sultan, 2010) shows that
there is a range of resources and services available to education via Cloud
Computing, whether they concern infrastructure, services, solutions or the
introduction of new processes. That is, Cloud Computing brings many benefits to
education of which the following are considered the most commonly referred and
important.
4.1.1 Savings: The cloud promotes in general and in education in particular a cost
effective use of ITC resources, by reducing the cost through the:
 Sharing IT equipment which are centralized in the cloud and thus deliver
economies of scale and eliminate the need for costly local infrastructures.
 Sharing the provision of software licenses, management skills, physical security
for servers usually are under- or over-sized and not used to their maximum
potential.

 Reduction in the size and complexity of the number of machines and programs
installed and utilized at each site, for the cost of licenses and maintenance is less.
 Decrease in the number of applications that are installed and run in the
computers at each site, for the Cloud provides access to an unlimited number of
users.
 Cost of services which is based on the actual use of resources (pay-per-use
billing).
 Savings in human resources for the technical staff required to manage in-house
machines is minimum.
 Freeing up the Capex budget, for the Cloud involves the operational expenditure
model (Opex)
4.1.2 Flexibility: One of the main benefits of Cloud-based teaching and learning is
that it can prevent individual investments in equipment, programs etc. The reason is
that the centralized infrastructures of cloud computing promote flexibility in various
ways, including the following as they were reported by IBM:
 "Speed of adjusting to change: Centralizing and standardizing the available
resources enables faster upgrades in line with technological progress and/or
changes to demand and requirements.
 Smooth adjustment to ICT resources: (e.g., servers, storage space, calculating
power, application authorities, content) and how they are made available, thanks
to the flexibility of the infrastructure, and the ease of accessing resources based
on needs (since, with cloud-based ICT, a new version of the application or any
application software can be more easily distributed to users).
 Flexibility in implementing teaching content: including, for personalized
learning, a customized teaching process that meets the needs and specific
difficulties of each student (or each profile of student); students are then able to
draw from the whole of the content available, as well as find the information and
tools they are looking for that are appropriate to their stage of education.
 Flexibility in terms of the number of machines needed: Cloud architecture can
potentially support every type of client hardware and application (albeit with a
number of exceptions, depending on the service-provider).
 Self-service potential for students, teachers and education establishments; and
 Flexibility of learning, giving easy access to courses and content at any time,
any place; options to learn outside the school itself, as well as outside of the

school calendar (holidays, ongoing learning after-school/postgraduate training)".
(IBM, 2010)
4.1.3 Effectiveness: Cloud Computing by promoting a dynamic exchange and
participation between teachers, pupils and students, their social network and parents,
leads first into finding the appropriate to the stage of education information and tools.
But more importantly to an effective learning and teaching process. That is, Cloud
Computing provides a more productive learning for the students leading among
others to :the rise in their level of understanding and achievement, increased chance
of success, gaining a clearer view of the realities of their future working life, etc. In
terms of teachers and administrators Cloud Computing provides them with the tools
to pool and implement effective management practices.
4.1.4 Sharing: Cloud Computing provides the means in every institution to avoid the
duplication of resources that exist elsewhere. That is, skills, good practices,
applications, teaching content and infrastructures can be pooled and shared.
Moreover, the sharing of equipment leads into harmonizing and making it easier to
support resources, as well as avoiding the problems of incompatibility or the difficulty
of integration between various tools and systems .Finally sharing teaching material
and subject content avoids educational inequalities and the present day issue of
“poorly performing” or “second-rate” schools and thus promises fairer access to
educational and learning resources. Overall, Cloud Computing sharing capabilities
represent a major input into:
 Bridging the digital divide.
 Promoting a new way of making education more accessible.
 Ultimately reducing digital social inequalities.
4.1.5 Real time Access: Cloud computing allows students and teachers to access in
real time useful and free information from anywhere in the world in a matter of
seconds. In education, this holds a special importance for it provides teachers and
students a paramount tool in the learning process that of constantly updating their
stock of information.
4.1.6 Reduces the Risk of Obsolescence: For all practical purposes Cloud
Computing provides an “anti-obsolescence” insurance against technological
changes, because it can cope better and more efficiently with their increasingly rapid
development. In addition it ensures the constant upgrading of all documents for it is
done in a centralized, systematic, at a single central point manner.

4.1.7 Reduces Users' Carbon Footprint: Cloud Computing benefits are not, as
most computer experts think, only related to how much its users can save as well as
provide them with the other educational advantages mentioned previously. Users of
cloud computing are more likely to significantly reduce users' carbon footprint. In an
era (the year 2014 was the warmest year since temperature records are kept) where
the need for educational establishments to become more sustainable, there is an
increasing value in improving the institutions’ carbon footprint and energy costs. As a
result, virtualized services such as those offered by cloud computing should be
considered an important contribution towards that goal and an added benefit of that
educational approach.
4.1.8 Cloud Computing Concerns: Cloud computing, as indicated above, is a
valuable tool in servicing education. However, like in any other service of this scale
and complexity, there are bound to be concerns about the technology’s
maturity(Sultan, 2010). The most important of those concerns are:
 Control: A major concern of education stakeholders (from politicians to school
administrators and teachers) is to surrender control of their resources to outside
providers who can change anytime the underlying technology without their
consent.
 Security: There are security concerns about Cloud Computing not only from the
education community but from all its users. Specialists and plain users agree that
the cloud’s economies of scale and flexibility are both a friend and a foe from a
security point of view. That is, the biggest challenge in cloud computing is the
security and privacy problems caused by its multi-tenancy nature and the
outsourcing of infrastructure, sensitive data and critical applications. As a result,
the massive concentrations of resources and data present a very attractive target
to hackers. However, cloud-based defenses are continuously becoming more
robust, scalable and cost-effective.
 Legal Issues and Privacy: Despite the fact that there is an increasing number of
institutions, regions and countries applying Cloud based education, any large
scale or universal implementation of cloud services by educational establishments
have to wait until law-makers both at the European and national level complete
(EU) or begin (member states) to address the legal issues that relate to privacy
and data protection in the context of cloud computing. However, some cloud
providers are already addressing these issues by using state-of-the-art encryption
technologies.
 Vendor Lock and Failures: Another concern of the education community is
vendor lock and failures. More specifically, there are serious repercussions for the
education institutions who are the end users trusting their data to vendors who
offer their services through proprietary APIs and own the data centers and thus

are susceptible to their whims and failures. Of course there are efforts to relieve
these fears. For example, a solution can be to base the APIs on open source
message standards such as SOAP or REST and force institutions to work with
reliable well established companies who are likely to be around for many years to
come.
 Reliability: Another concern in Cloud based education is reliability of the
providers. Up to now providers respond to service outages by providing service
credits. However, those credits are cold comfort for classes missed by students
and teachers cut off from their teaching material. The solution is to increase the
pace of improving reliability.
4.2 Trends in Society
From the previous discussion, it should be evident that although Cloud computing is
not simply a novice technology that promises to deliver many exciting things. It is
already a reality and there are many educational implementations of it. Nevertheless
evaluating the maturity it has reached, its present and anticipated pace of growth as
well as its trends are not easily attainable objectives, but they are achievable as long
as there is a good grasp of them. That is, in order to fulfill the objective of evaluating
the future scenarios for Cloud Computing based Education there is a need to
examine trends and developments and their implications as well as their limitations at
the interface of Cloud Computing and education. Following is such an examination of
the trends which are emerging from developments in society, in technology and in
education.
In terms of societal trends, the literature (Molebash,2013; Facer and Sandford,2010;
Cliff et al. 2008; Goodings 2009; Horst 2009; Jewitt 2009; Reich 2009; Riley 2009;
Young & Muller 2009) shows that in our society the following long-term developments
have become particularly important in challenging our assumptions about education.
4.2.1 Towards denser, deeper and more diverse information landscape:
nowadays we "know more stuff about more stuff" because our ability to gather, store,
examine, archive and circulate more data, in more diverse forms, about more
aspects of ourselves and our world, is and will keep increasing more than ever
before. The reasons are many but simple and are related to social trends towards:
"accountability and security, the decreasing cost and increasing availability of digital
storage capacity, the development of new forms of genetic information, the ability to
digitally tag almost any physical object, space or person, the ability to represent
information in diverse modes"( Sultan, 2010).
4.2.2 Towards Constant Connectivity: The ability to be constantly connected to
knowledge, resources, people and tools is a reality for persons in countries with an

advanced technology and infrastructure. in the very near future it will be available to
all in every place. That is, individuals will have the capacity to remain in ‘perpetual
contact’ with diverse networks, communities, institutions and persons, both physical
and virtual.
4.2.3 Towards personal cloud: As a collateral development of the previous trend
there is and will continue to be a rise in mobile and personal technologies and a
lowering of barriers to data storage. As a result, individuals increasingly are or soon
will be likely to ‘wrap’ their information landscape around themselves rather than
managing it through institutions.
4.2.4 Towards Working and living alongside machines: As I am writing these
lines, I communicated with a computer on the other end of my telephone line who
fixed the wi-fi which had stopped working. Nowadays we have become increasingly
accustomed to machines taking on more roles previously occupied by humans
across both professional and manual occupations as well as in homes and
workplaces. As a result, it becomes increasingly normal to accept the presence of
"machines" in our lives, but at the same time it raises significant ethical and practical
issues and generate public debate relating to questions of dependence and
autonomy, and of privacy and trust, particularly with regards to sensitive data and
critical systems. These dilemmas are of particular importance to Education.
4.2.5 Towards a Multicultural Society and Schools : Demographic trends follow a
divergent path in the developed and the less developed countries, resulting at the
first level in mass population moves between them (legal and illegal immigration) and
on a second level the creation of a multicultural society which in turn results in
multicultural schools.
4.2.6 Towards a Knowledge Society and Economy?: Today's society operating at
the interface of demographic and technological changes has polarized expert into
believing that the future is either in the development of a ‘smart’ economy based on
knowledge and innovation or that knowledge economy is utopian. That is, on one
hand technological developments lead into a knowledge society and economy where
highly competitive R&D activities and knowledge work are the driving forces. On the
other hand the same factors it is believed to enable centralized groups to manage
ever greater numbers of people across dispersed locations These developments may
bring an end to current hopes of a universal, democratic ‘knowledge economy’ and a
rise in massive inequalities.
4.2.7 Towards a Digital Native Society: Digital natives, those born after 1980, are
characterized as having access to networked digital technologies and the skills to
use them. Their lives (social interaction, friendships, civic and other activities) are
mediated by digital technologies and they have never known any other way of life.
However ‘digital natives’ will, like their parents before them, need to learn to use the
new technological advancements that are keep coming. For example, in an age

when news often spreads virtually through social media, most experts feel it is critical
that young people learn how to analyze and evaluate the authenticity of the myriad of
messages they encounter every day. As a result, substantial changes in the
distribution of educational resources will be required to fulfill the educational needs of
this population cohort who will be required to learn the rest of their lives .
4.2.8 Towards the Dictum "Geography matters but not Distance": As
technological developments lead to a ‘sense of presence’ in remote interactions, and
as such interactions are developing between families, friends and co-workers, the
notion of being ‘together apart’ is becoming a familiar aspect of working, interacting
and entertaining ourselves. That is, the separation of ‘information resources’ from
physical locations will become widespread resulting in the diminution of the
importance of location. On the other hand, Geography will continue to influence the
access of individuals and groups to digital networks, for physical geography
determines their pricing, infrastructure, legal constraints and regulation. Moreover,
the "face to face" interaction will retain its importance for many, especially social,
aspects of our lives, because physical proximity is paramount for them. For example,
people will continue to use "place" and physical location as a marker for identity.
4.3 Trends in Technology
Technological changes that have an impact on our lives have started some time ago,
but their important characteristic is that they are continuing operating, developing and
increasing their influence in our society and in education in particular
(Molebash,2013). As a result, the suggestion of Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the
Federal Reserve Board who said in 1997 that "One of the most central dynamic
forces [in the economy] is the accelerated expansion of computer and
telecommunications technologies...clearly our educational institutions will continue to
play an important role in preparing workers to meet these demands", still holds today.
Among the most important trends present are the following:
4.3.1 Technology will continue to have an impact on education: The rate of
technology change and growth has been exponential and is not likely to decrease.
Technology nowadays is widely used at all levels of education, influencing teaching
and learning methods and expectations. That is, technological innovations are
changing the very way that schools teach and students learn. For academic
institutions, charged with equipping graduates to compete in today’s knowledge
economy, have to employ among other online and distance learning, sophisticated
learning-management systems, multi-modal teaching, changing curricula and
spawning rich forms of online research and collaboration. As a result, technological
innovations will continue to have a major influence on teaching and learning

methodologies in the near future. In fact, technology will become a core factor in
determining the nature, the form and the structure of education.
4.3.2 Moore's Law will Continue to Operate: Gordon Moore, the cofounder of Intel
Corporation in 1965 suggested (half in jest) that technology doubles in processing
power approximately every 18 months and at the same time the price for that
technology declines by about 35% a year relative to this power. This trend of
increased power at lower cost, known as Moore's Law, has been operating since that
time and it is likely to continue in the immediate future.
4.3.3 Metcalfe's Law will Continue to Operate: The combination of better, faster
and cheaper computers and the increased bandwidth has caused a boon in the
network community. Based on this, Bob Metcalfe, inventor of the Ethernet, suggested
that the power of a network increases proportionally by the square of the number of
users, which is known as the Metcalfe's Law. That is, as the power of the computer
increases, so do the capabilities of communications media including glass fibers,
copper wires, and wireless communication systems. this trend which started some
time ago is expected to continue at least in the immediate future.
4.3.4 Technology Fusion will Continue to Operate: A few years ago there was a
sharp distinctions between computers, photos, publishing, TV/video, and
telecommunications. Now the distinctions between these media are blurring.
However, as Molebash (2013) has put it "Bringing them together results in the whole
having greater impact than each individual part...". Given that in education most of
these media are extensively utilized, this merger is considered as the most significant
trend in education and technology. As a result, technology fusion has and will
continue to have a significant impact on education.
4.4 Trends in Education
As it was mentioned previously there have been significant advances in Information
and Communications Technology (ICT) in the form of cloud computing that continue
unabated up to now. As a result, there is an increasingly perceived vision that cloud
based education (designed and provided in the form of optional, tailored services,
with operators and teaching establishments pooling their resources) will soon be the
single most important path towards future education. In other words, it is suggested
that the use of cloud computing in the classroom will have an impact on the
fundamental elements of classroom education (the subjects taught and the teaching
and learning methods in attaining them), as well the changing role of several
influential factors.
4.4.1 Subjects: In terms of the teaching subjects it is suggested that cloud
computing will become the 4th fundamental subject that students should master
(after reading, writing and arithmetic). That is, education is being transformed into a

model consisting of providing an additional subject that is commoditized and
delivered along with the traditional subjects of reading, writing and arithmetic. In other
words, in this model, students in addition to learning how to read, write and do
arithmetic calculations, they need to be efficient in using the cloud to access all forms
of educational material, based on their requirements without regard to where these
are coming from or how they are delivered. In other words the new (computing)
subject, together with the other three fundamental ones, will provide a new teaching
and learning approach which is essential to meet the basic needs of the 21st century
student.
Therefore, what is suggested is: first, despite the advancement of modern education
approaches the basic subjects will continue to be provided to all students, because
they provide them with the necessary dexterities that later on in their lives will allow
them to accomplish the necessary daily life tasks. Second and most important in the
basic school subjects cloud computing should be included. That is, ICT in the form of
cloud computing will be taught to students together with the other three fundamental
subjects. Thus this vision of the foursome set of fundamental subjects will transform
the entire education structure in the 21st century into a different form of education.
4.4.2 Learning: Policy makers, researchers and plain everyday experience indicate
that with the advent of the 21st century a fundamental transformation of education is
needed to address the new dexterities and competences required. Indeed several
studies (i.e. European Commission/ Horizon Report Europe: 2014 Schools Edition,
European Commission/Ala-Machida et. al., 2010 and Beyond Current Horizons
Programme/Facer and Sanford, 2010) have shown that future developments, related
to required skills and competences, will changes schools over the next 20 years.
Among these changes the most important are:
 Learning will Focus on Four Object Competences: In the future, in order to
focus on knowledge the most important basic future skills will be analytical and
critical dexterities, problem solving, collaboration, negotiation, innovation and self
management, which, however require Languages (good handling of reading and
writing), Mathematics and the help of Cloud Computing. That is, the four
fundamental subjects approach is considered crucial for developing one’s
competences over the course of a lifetime.
 Learning will be Tailored to the Needs of Individuals: In the future, in order to
encourage individual learners to develop their own talents and interests, the
educational approaches should be tailored to their individual needs, learning styles
and preferences. But, such a goal can only be achieved only using Cloud
Computing which can provide the students with the necessary skills and
competences, which in turn allow the rigid walls of the classroom to be transform
into the random, moving shape of the internet.

 Learning will be Based on a New Vision: A broader concept than the previous
one was introduced by Redecker et. al.,(2011),who have suggested that a three
axis vision of personalization, collaboration and informalization (informal learning)
will be at the core of learning in the future. That is, these three principles for
organizing learning and teaching will be the guiding force in the school of future,
which will be characterized by lifelong and life-wide learning and shaped by the
ubiquity of Information and Communication Technologies in the form of Cloud
Computing.
 Learning will be Active and Connected to Real Life: In the future, in order for
the younger generation to learn to grow up as part of society and be aware of what
takes place around them, learning is required to be active and constructive and
take place in social interaction with other learners, teachers and third parties. In
this way, student's learning will be connected to real life, to nature and to the local
and global community.
 Learning will be Towards Open, Flexible and Networked Relationships: In the
future, to limit barriers to students in order to participate across institutions,
cultures and educational settings, it requires: the development of compatible
personal learning records owned and managed by the students themselves;
interoperable systems and standards that will enable students to demonstrate
attainment and experience across diverse settings; the arrangements and tools
that will enable students to take advantage of learning opportunities across
different providers; and the means to support students and teachers to navigate
the future complex environment effectively. Of course none other than Cloud
Computing can provide students and teachers the ability to accomplish each one
of those as well as their combination.
 Online Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: Online learning has been
part of the university education for a long time and its use is increasing unabated.
However, this trend is now extending to the lower levels of education which are
rapidly adapting to the new technologies. In essence, online learning has enjoyed
a renaissance over the last few years and has sparked an explosion of
development, new ideas, and experimentation. That is, online pedagogical models
are proliferating all over the world and in all levels of education. For example, in
Europe, the European Commission’s “Opening Up Education" has put into place
several initiatives to stimulate their development. The major reasons online
learning is expected to transform teaching and learning are:
o It is less expensive to deliver than classroom-based education because it does
not require physical plant.
o It is accessible to learners anytime and anywhere.
o It appeals to the Net Generation’s unique needs and expectations in many
ways.

Finally this trend is especially important to institutions with a public-service
mandate, for they consider online learning a key to advancing their mission of
placing education within reach of people who might otherwise not be able to
access it.
 Distance Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: Distance education is
also becoming increasingly acceptable not only at the university level, but at the
lower education levels as well. Educational institutions are leveraging advanced
technologies to put education within reach of many more individuals than any
other time in history. This trend is more likely to be strengthened in the future.
 Hybrid Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: As students become
familiar with and adept at using the Internet, classroom pedagogical approaches
increasingly include hybrid learning strategies and this trend is expected to
continue. Hybrid learning models by using both the physical and the virtual
learning environments allow teachers to engage students in a broader variety of
ways, extend their learning day and increase the focus on collaboration within the
classroom. On the other hand these models, when designed and implemented
effectively, enable students to use the school day for group work and project-
based activities, while using the network to access readings, videos, and other
learning materials on their own time, leveraging the best of both environments.
 Non- Formal Learning will Continue to Gain Acceptance: As citizens continue
to be active and focus on the kinds of self-directed, curiosity-based learning, then
the trend toward a non-traditional, non-formal learning will continue to increase.
That is, as more people are able to connect to the Internet and pursue inquiries at
their leisure from wherever place they choose, there will be an increasing
acceptance of this form of learning as well as formalizing it. In addition, there is a
realization that non-formal learning has great value for students as well. Many
experts believe that blending outside learning experiences into formal education
will create a dynamic environment that fosters experimentation, curiosity, and
creativity and most importantly a propensity for learning that will endure
throughout a student’s lifetime.
 Network learning will determine the design of a curriculum: Such a curriculum
would enable students to learn to work effectively within social networks and to
develop strategies to establish and mobilize social networks for their own
purposes. That is, students should be provided with tools, resources and skills to
among others: manage information, develop experience of working remotely,
explore the human–machine relationships, involved in socio-technical networks
etc. However, such skills and dexterities characterize Cloud Computing and
certainly can be utilized fulfill that future development.

4.4.3 Teaching: The previous discussion clearly indicates that in the learning and the
digital landscape in which education is operating, comparable teaching trends are
present to fulfill the new needs for subjects and learning (Vuorikari et. al 2010). Some
of those are:
 Collaborative Teaching: The existence of collaborative applications tools such as
wikis, videoconferencing, interactive whiteboards and social networking, on one
hand are encouraging students to collaborate between themselves and on the
other they are enabling teachers to participate in the same lessons. That is,
collaboration can also be established not only between pupils, but also between
students and teachers as well as with others outside the classroom. The last
network opens up teaching to outside contributors, such as a specialist in a
subject being studied who might, for example, be a parent or colleague of a
parent.
 Collective Teaching: Another trend in innovative teaching is the collective one,
which enables several teachers to participate in the same lessons with other
teachers, resulting in the virtual presence of several teachers for the same subject.
 Personalized Teaching: With the rapid advances in technology (before we
completely assimilate "Web 2.0", we are heralding "Web 3.0") the new teaching
environment, which enables teachers to spontaneously manage metadata,
structure and filter data and disseminate knowledge, it can provide alternatives for
the selection of the teaching content that matches the profile of every individual
student.
 Parents Teaching: The Involvement of parents in the teaching process is not only
desirable, but attainable. For example, portals or solutions along the lines of digital
work spaces (DSW) certainly enable parents to follow the academic progress of
their children, using comparative data (i.e. evaluating data from students of the
same age from other institution, areas or even countries). The availability of this
kind of information can serve as a springboard at first level for the interaction with
teachers and in a second level for their direct involvement in their children's'
education.
 Real-time Assessment: Another trend in teaching is the use of technology in
applying innovative systematic and regular assessments in order to monitor and
track the activities and educational progress of each student. The results of the
assessment can then be send to a central point to be analyzed and assessed
leading to recommendations in real-time. This assessment approach certainly will
change the nature or purpose of traditional exams and tests.
 Predictive Analysis" A collateral to the previous trend is the notion of gathering
information and applying analytical diagrams that make it possible to assess a
student’s progress on a day-to-day basis, which however at the end enables

teachers to have quick and easy adjustments to their teaching material (e.i., the
type of exercises being used) as well as the method of supervision and guidance
used. Of course the ultimate goal is to create a dynamic educational process
designed to reduce the risk of failure or dropping out. For all involved in teaching
know that having assessment data in real time, it is possible to predict student's
failure and identify the signs if someone is going off the rails or is losing his
motivation at school. In this way the teacher can be immediately aware of the
situation and can take the necessary actions.
4.4.4 The Changing Role of Educational Elements: Cloud Computing with the
recourses it provides to educational elements, it forces them to adapt to the
developing situations, which in turn change their role in the education process.
Among them the most adept to change role are:
 Teachers: All the trends mentioned previously can become a reality only when
teachers are trained to exploit the available resources and tools to support the new
tailor-made learning pathways and experiences, which are motivating, engaging,
efficient, relevant and challenging. That is, Teachers must be capable of:
o guiding students in the new “time-space” that is created;
o guiding and advising them in their various methods of learning (including via
social networks, online discover, etc.);
o acting as referees to avoid bad habits (e.g., filtering unsound knowledge
gleaned from the internet or from “friends” on social networks); and
o basing their teaching on collaboration between students and promoting their
more energetic participation in classes, something that is fuelled by
unencumbered access to information.
That is, teachers are increasingly expected to be adept at a variety of Cloud
Computing approaches for content delivery, learner support, and assessment; to
collaborate with other teachers both inside and outside their schools; to routinely
use digital strategies in their work with students and act as guides and mentors;
and to organize their own work and comply with administrative documentation and
reporting requirements.
 School Administrators: The administration of any institution has to adapt and
reflect the new ways of teaching and learning. Educational changes have brought
about new conditions that need to be imposed and become operational, such as :
o New forms of curricula.
o Assessment approaches and networking.
o New practices that work, find ways to share, make visible and learnable their
results
o Both, top-down and bottom-up approaches to make changes happen.
o Support Innovation in all educational and administrative aspect of an institution
o Facilitate the monitoring and dissemination of good practices.

 Transforming of Knowledge: With the emergence of new technologies, teaching
strategies and pedagogical approaches will undergo drastic changes as to the
transfer of knowledge. That is, the current change in teaching context (internet
versus the blackboard) clearly implies a new relationship with knowledge, namely
that knowledge is now easier to access and can be used differently. As a result,
there is a notable difference between teaching an individual and running flexible
learning communities. The reason is that virtual communities operate in different
ways, depending of course on the area of learning and the people involved, than a
single individual. This means that students can be in the same classroom, but
operating in virtual networks the knowledge that each one will be receiving will be
very different from each other
 Social Media: Technological developments have brought about changes the way
people interact, present ideas and information or in other words have brought in
our lives social media. By the end of 2014, the agency "We are Social" declared
that there were around 310 million active social media users in Europe, accounting
for 40% of the continent’s population. A large part of them are students and
teachers who routinely use social media to communicate with each other on
school matters and keeping up to date on assignments. That is, social networks
have a different role for the education shareholders, who are using them as
professional communities of practice, as learning communities, and as a platform
to share information about assignments, content and interesting stories about
topics students are studying in class.
.
 Open Education Resources: Cloud Computing is an efficient conduit for open
educational resources (OER),which can be described as materials that can be
freely copied, freely mixed with other material, and free of barriers to access,
sharing, and educational use. The last few years the use of these materials in the
education environment has change considerably not only in terms of their constant
growth in breadth and quality but mainly as a matter of policy in schools, especially
in the many disciplines in which high quality educational content is more abundant
than ever. That is the role of OER has been changing as it relates to the creation,
circulation, and standardization of educational resources (UNESCO,OER Paris,
declaration , 2012)
 Data-Driven Learning and Assessment: Another important change that Cloud
Computing has brought about is the role of data sources in the education process.
That is, there is a change in using data sources for personalizing the learning
experience, for ongoing formative assessment of learning and for performance
measurement, which have led to the development of a new role of data sources
and a relatively new field named data-driven learning and assessment. The goal of
this field is to build better pedagogies, empower students to take an active part in
their learning, target at-risk student populations and assess factors affecting

completion and student success. In this way teachers get crucial insights into
student progress and interaction with online texts, courseware, and learning
environments used to deliver instruction.
Given that to a great extent the world of education follow and is influenced by those
trends and changes, Cloud Computing will bring changes and developments in the
way education is revised or innovated and is presented next.
4.5 Innovation
The benefits of Cloud Computing offered to the education system as recourses (i.e.
centralized and optimized, sharing, on demand, ability to evolve, etc.) provides the
system with the ability to revise the way in which education institutions and students
and teachers are able to use equipment, applications and subjects' content. Several
initiatives have been taken in the last few years providing such technological
innovations to teaching and learning. Among them the most interesting, based on
Cloud Computing techniques and technologies, are the following (IBM, 2010):
4.5.1 Creating an Intelligent Classroom: Cloud Computing by providing the
recourses for a set of tools and applications can contribute in creating a classroom
with a quality and effectiveness of teaching that can be considered intelligent. Among
such tools and applications the following are the most interesting:
 Access to courses, syllabuses, documentation and information, regardless of the
location of the learner, which can be in the classroom, in the school’s yard, at
home, travelling, or in the library.
 Access of students (individually or in group) to the same learning subject content,
which allows for a much sought after collaboration between students.
 Access on an individual basis (personalized) to the learning resources which best
suit the individual student’s needs and learning difficulties. Providing of course to
the student freedom of choice by the student (including guidance by the teacher).
 Access to the teaching recourses of one institution to students and teachers from
another (close or further away) so that they can share material, practices etc.
 Access to real time assessment results of tests, exams and homework, which are
centrally available. Such a tool, in addition of providing immediate identification of
each student’s needs and difficulties, more importantly it provides the means to
place current results in a personal or other context (i.e. to compared them with
fellow students, as well as with the student's, the teacher's and the school's
academic history).

4.5.2 Creating a Virtual Classroom: Cloud Computing by providing the necessary
communication and collaboration tools can help bring down the walls of the
classroom and give rise to the virtual classroom, because it can promote exchanges,
group work and inter-school projects. More specifically it enables:
 Students of the same age located in distant institutions, towns or countries to
share in the experience of any class being taught online.
 Teachers in a certain location to teach classes in a different school, town, country
or even continent, complete with the required material.
 Researchers can have instant access to research and discoveries from any a
parallel or linked center around the world.
That is, platforms and content hosted in the cloud enable: students to approach
topics in a wider context; teachers to create collaboration spaces or forums where
they can interact and invite colleagues to join in; and research activities or
discoveries to be approached simultaneously by scientists of any specialization and
from any part of the world.
4.5.3 Creating a Virtual Lab: Cloud Computing by offering the resources for
processing, calculating and simulating can contribute in creating virtual labs. More
specifically, students and teachers can carry out, in a virtual form, the simulations or
experiments they need or want in any subject (chemistry, physics, social sciences,
economics, etc.), and in any degree of difficulty (from the simplest to the most
complex).
4.5.4 Creating Virtual Content: Cloud Computing by providing Digital IWB's
(interactive whiteboards) , it can help creating a virtual reference system of content
that remains in the public domain and thus avoiding the pitfalls of using nothing but
the costly commercial content. But mainly such a system can provide teachers with
the choice of using a content as is, have alter it to meet their needs, adapt it to the
local conditions, or finally use it to supplement their own. The opportunity to share
this virtual content, together with the input from the local teachers will have a
favorable effect, both on the diversity and quality of the content, as well as on the
ability of all schools to access quality content that they have not had the resources to
develop themselves.
4.5.5 Creating a Cloud School: Cloud Computing by providing the necessary
recourses can contribute in creating a new, different school whose students can
master, exercise and apply the following competences in:
 Digitalization: Refers to his ability to efficiently, confidently and critically use the
new ICT technologies in order to search, sifting, organize, manage and evaluate
information in an efficient and targeted way.

 Learning: Is related to students' ability for learning to learn. that is, students are
motivated to pursue their own learning progress and knowing how to process
information, assigning meaning to it and converting it into knowledge.
 Understanding: Is associated with students' global understanding. That is ,how to
acquire the competence of understanding in order to be able to analyze the
surrounding world, be social and part of the universal society.
 Collaborating: Corresponds to the a crucial skill that needs to be learned and
practiced from early on in education, and Cloud Computing can support it. That is,
teachers, but mainly students need to learn to listen, to respect, negotiate and
even accept ideas express by others, understand and work in teams and different
roles, and finally participate in communal activities.
 Updating: This skill refers to both students and teachers who by using the
recourses of the cloud can be prepared for the continuous changes and
developments continue by updating such skills as: autonomy, lifelong learning,
flexibility innovation, creativity etc.
 Communicating: The use of Cloud Computing in terms of learning and practicing
foreign languages helps students put emphasis on using them as a means for
communication with other people and not on grammatical or syntactical
correctness per se.
4.5.6 Creating Intelligent Administration: Cloud Computing provides effective tools
for management, assessing performance and managing resources, which allow
school administrators to perform three important functions:
 Analytical Monitoring of students progress and teaching programs, which in turn,
makes it possible for courses to be adjusted more quickly, helping the student and
redistributing teaching resources to suit needs.
 Performance monitoring in the cloud, allows administrators to deal with data and
information in a centralized way and from multiple establishments, which allows
the important to management benchmarking. In this way school administrators can
re-energize teaching policies, as well as better inform, using a series of criteria,
students and their parents.
 Performance management or education lifecycle can be achieved using the
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) form of cloud service which enables administrators
to save data related to students, including information from several different
establishments and to process them centrally, in order for the data to be
accessible to everyone everywhere. This is important, in terms of consulting

outside office hours, for teachers who work in a many schools, when campuses
are located far apart and for teaching networks.
4.5.7 Creating Innovative Research Environment: Cloud Computing can provide
researchers the tools to gain access to abundant information that is increasingly
widespread and scattered all over the world. That is, in order for researchers to be
able to operate and be effective, they need to gain access to information and use it
properly, which can be made possible by centralizing the resources in the cloud.
More specifically, Cloud Computing provides the tools for the:
 Creation of Communities and Collaboration Schemes. This scheme between
researchers sharing common or complementary interests, can undoubted have a
stimulating effect on research efforts.
 Creation of Shared Calculation Infrastructures. This timeshare approach,
adapted to the concept of virtualization and the cloud, leads to a common pool of
resources accessible to every researchers who needs them.
 Creation of Centralized Research Data from a variety of sources. This approach
enables the results to be used faster, leading to a speedier progress from the
moment the data are processed by analysis and software application.
4.6 Challenges for the Future of Education
The world of education operating within the environment of Cloud Computing follow
and is influenced by many factors and circumstances as well as their trends and
changes. As a result, the future of Cloud Computing in education inevitably holds
many challenges among which the most profound are the following:
4.6.1 Education Needs to Change to Respond to Economy and Society:
Learning objectives need to change to take into account future competence needs,
which are determined by societal conditions in general and economic demands in
particular. As a result, a major challenge for the education system in the future is to
cater to the needs and requirements that are imposed upon education by the
economy and society.
4.6.2 Learning Needs to Change Towards Knowledge: A fundamental challenge
for the future in education will be for students to learn how to safely and responsibly
use technologies in school as well as in their lives and at work. However, in order for
that need to be met more knowledge is needed for effective pedagogical strategies in
the use of Cloud Computing in schools. In other words Cloud Computing has to

provide improved or new ways to increase access to various forms of information and
connections between people or more and better knowledge.
4.6.3 Learning Needs to Change to Become Authentic: Authentic learning is also
an important challenge for the future in education and is concerned with bringing real
life experiences into the classroom. That is, authentic learning has to become a
necessary pedagogical strategy establishing or upgrading a fundamental concept,
namely: help students to engage in seeking some connection between the world as
they know it exists outside the school and their experiences in school. Cloud
Computing can provide the tools to create learning scenarios incorporating real life
experiences familiar to students, that can bring authentic learning into the classroom
and prepare them for the real world. The upmost challenge of such practices of
course is to "help retain students in school and prepare them for further education,
careers, and citizenship in a way that traditional practices are too often failing to do"
(E.U. Horizon Report, 2014).
4.6.4 Teachers Need to Change to Become Part of the Changing Process:
Another challenge, is the one faced by teachers who should be confident dealing with
technologies as part of their work in the future. That is, teachers have to create a
daily working environment that encourages innovation and new learning approaches.
In doing so they become part of the changing educational process which not only
enhances their professional development, but also promotes educational innovation.
4.6.5 Students Need to Change to Become Co-Designers of Learning: Although
traditional wisdom holds that the notion that students could be designers and
architects of their learning environments is inherently disruptive and thus
unacceptable. Nevertheless, there is considerable evidence (E.U. Horizon
Report,2014; Redecker et. al., 2011) substantiating that when students are given the
tools and responsibility to design their own learning environments, they become more
curious and more engaged. And this is the challenge for the future of education, for
as it was pointed out previously present day students having all the resources
available on the Internet, force their teachers' role to shift towards being a mentor
and advisor in the learning journey and thus allowing o them to become co-designers
of learning.
4.6.6 Students Need to Change To Complex Thinking and Communication: This
is also another challenge related to students. The web, big data, modeling
technologies and a series of other innovations make possible to train students in
complex and systematic thinking, which in turn have an impact on communication
skills. That is, the challenge for the future is to for students to be able to master
modes of complex thinking and the capacity to connect people with other people,
using Cloud technologies. In other words this challenge requires an ability to
understand the bigger picture and to make appeals that are based on logic,
knowledge and data.

4.6.7 Leaders Need to Change to have a Holistic View: This challenge concerns
the education leaders who in the future need to have a holistic view of the education
process by taking into account aspects such as skills, attitudes, regulations, IT
resources, time resources, links between schools, parents and community as well as
social support. That is, leading a school in the future will require a holistic approach,
whereby all aspects of education and all stakeholders as well as their
interrelationships are part of a successfully led institution.
4.6.8 Policymaking Need to Change towards Universal Participation:
Policy makers are also facing an important challenge, for they have to change the
way policymaking has been practiced up to now. More specifically, policies should be
developed by taking into account the viewpoints of all education stakeholders,
including especially the education practitioners. Cloud Computing can help towards
developing such strategy. For example, eTwinning allows everybody to participate
and in this way to contribute to the development of educational policies and
strategies
4.6.9 Cloud Computing Needs to be Integrated with Teacher Education: The
final challenge is related to teacher education and training. In most cases of schools
which are connected and equipped with technology, the teachers lack the skills or
formal education they need to empower students to pursue their own interests and
free class time for more experiential forms of learning. As a result, the challenge is to
provide teacher education and/or training as how to integrate digital pedagogies in
their teaching in order for their students to best learn with digital tools and methods.

5.1 Foresight
The growth of the foresight literature in the last fifteen years has been matched by
the increase of misunderstandings and confusions as to what foresight and foresight
methods actually are. For the purpose of this report it is sufficient to state that
foresight is NOT some forecasting by experts, neither a prophecy nor a prediction,
but it is a range of methods that allow key stakeholders, including decision and policy
makers, to share a vision and to extend the depth of knowledge base for decision-
making so as to organize long term thinking (Facer and Sandford, 2010). In other
words, it combines critical thinking, debate and effort to shape the future, using
participatory processes.
Moreover the concept of foresight can be described as a range of methods that can
be differentiated into four spaces or dimensions, related to the way future challenges
can be characterized. Namely: the nature space, the views space, the purpose
space and the process space (Fig. 5)
Figure 5: Foresight methods
5.1.1 Nature
With regards to their nature, foresight methods can be characterized as quantitative
and qualitative (Popper, 2008; Miles and Keenan 2012)
 Quantitative methods: These methods generally measure variables and apply
statistical analyses, using or generating – at least in theory – reliable and valid
data, such as socio‐economic indicators. These methods place a heavy reliance
on numerical representation of developments, which provide us with the ability to

examine rates and scales of change. However they have several disadvantages
such as only offering a limited grasp of many important social and political
variables, the danger of spurious precision and problems of communicating with
less numerate audiences among others. The majority of quantitative methods use
simple or complex models of some sort, or involves experts putting numerical
values to developments as they agree with particular statements or forecasts
(i.e.in Delphi).
 Qualitative methods: It is self evident that these methods are employed where
the key trends or developments are hard to capture using simplified indicators, or
where such data are not available or possible to attain. That is, these methods
usually provide meaning and awareness to events, while various forms of creative
thinking are encouraged for it is difficult to quantify opinions, judgments, beliefs,
attitudes, etc. Brainstorming, citizens' panels, gaming, interviews, literature review
(LR), questionnaires/surveys and SWOT analysis are some of the most commonly
used qualitative methods. Finally, it should be noted that such methods (working
systematically with qualitative data) are becoming more widely used with the
development of Information Technology tools such as “mind mapping”,
”conversation analysis”, etc.
5.1.2 Purpose
The second dimension that characterizes foresight approaches commonly used is
their purpose. Foresight methods are classified as exploratory and normative.
Although this distinction is useful, the terminology can be misleading (since both
approaches involve exploration and both are questioning norms and values) and
therefore caution is advised in using these terms. Generally, there is little evidence
as to when each of these approaches is most valuable and in the literature we often
find foresight efforts involving a mixture of the two (Miles and Keenan 2012; IPTS,
2009 ).
 Exploratory methods: These methods can be characterized as “outward bound”
for they begin with the present and move towards the future. They represent a
process based on extrapolating past trends or causal dynamics, or by asking a
“what if?” question related to the implications of possible developments or events
upon these trends. Trend, impact, cross-impact analyses, conventional Delphi and
some applications of models are among the explanatory methods. Although the
majority of forecasting studies are exploratory the validity and necessity of the next
category is extremely important.
 Normative methods: These methods, in contrast, can be considered as “inward
bound”. Their process starts with a preliminary view of a possible (often a
desirable) future or set of futures that are of interest. They continue backwards to
see if and how these futures might or might not result from the present conditions.

In general normative approaches can be powerful inputs into priority-setting and
help the decision-making process by providing road-maps and indicators to
monitor progress towards the desired future. Relevance trees, morphological
analyses and some less conventional uses of Delphi such as “goals Delphi”
methods represent this category.
5.1.3 View
A third critical dimension is the one that distinguishes foresight methods according to
their view. That is, those methods that are based on examining and articulating the
views of experts and those based on investigating the consequences of specific
assumptions (Miles and Keenan 2012).
 Expert-based methods: The objective of such methods is to present the
opinions and the evidence upon which the judgments of some chosen experts are
based. That is, they seek to articulate the views of experts related to trends and
contingencies that may give rise to alternative futures as well as to the critical
priorities and strategies for the future. In this group of methods belong large-scale
surveys of opinion (such as Delphi), or much smaller and more detailed
elaboration of visions (such as cross-impact analysis.). The results may be
presented in quantitative form (i.e. Delphi estimates of future developments), or
qualitatively (i.e. narrative scenarios).
 Assumption-based methods: These methods elaborate on visions and priorities
using existing public knowledge (available statistics, analyses, breakthroughs,
developments and contingencies). However, these methods rely in most cases,
as the previous ones on experts rather than on what many expect on interactive
approaches. Another misconception related to these methods is that they are
mainly quantitative. For example, scenario work approaches are mainly
qualitative, although they are assumption-based. The determining factor is the
decision as to what might be the state of affairs now and in the future by relying
either upon existing data or knowledge or by eliciting opinions and estimates from
experts. Usually in most cases a combination of the two approaches is desirable
and is followed.
5.1.4 Process
The final characterization of foresight methods is the way they are differentiated
according to the process they follow (Miles and Keenan, 2012).
 Analysis: This category of methods functions as an umbrella for a variety
of approaches all of which are involved in some form of process or complexity
reducing technique. As the title of the methods indicates these methods are
aiming at helping analyze the system under evaluation and sometimes
decompose it into smaller parts in order to achieve a more efficient treatment of
the Foresight questions involved.

 Creative Methods: This Foresight category includes a very wide and diverse
spectrum of Methods. All of them however are characterized by their intent to go
above and beyond the previously described categories as well as familiar
notions, thus making creativity an essential part of them. Therefore the line
between Creative Methods and other Foresight Methods is not as clear and
without ambiguity as scientists in this area would have like. Generally, these
methods aim to lead participants and experts into an imagined future and a mode
of thinking that can be expressed by the term “outside the box”. That is, they help
participants to abandon their comfort zones, to refuse accepting linear
developments for the future and provide them with the opportunities to deal with
uncertainties and unexpected events as well as new creative and alternative
ideas for complex topics.
 Expert Panels: This method is one of the most frequently used in Foresight
undertakings. In other words, most of the activities in Foresight exercises are
carried out by expert panels. The expert panel method is based on eliciting
knowledge deliberated by a panel of experts. These panels are typically groups
of 10 to 20 experts who within a given time deliberate upon the future of a given
topic. Therefore, the main goal of a Panel is to synthesize, usually in an iterative
manner, a variety of inputs in order to provide a vision of future possibilities and
needs for a given topic.
 Simulations and Models: Although these methods can be considered relatively
new approaches in the Foresight community, at the same time they are fairly old
scientific techniques. That is, although most Foresight practitioners traditionally
focus on participatory approaches and open methods, recently there are new
needs and new possibilities that can be fulfilled with modern tools of computer
assisted methods such as simulations and models.
5.2 Methods Chosen
Foresight exercises are by nature complex, composite and highly collaborative
processes. As a result, there is no “one-single” way to organize an exercise or apply
one of the methods mentioned previously. That is to say, each and every exercise by
having its own specific characteristics, a set of objectives and a defined application
context leads to a unique selection of the method(s) for every Foresight exercise. It
should be noted, however, that no one method is a panacea. Different methods are
best suited to certain specific objectives, contexts, resources etc. Moreover the exact
mix of method(s) is highly dependent on access to relevant expertise and on the
nature of the problem being studied, for they represent different approaches to
handling information in order to achieve the Foresight goal. In sum, there is a variety
of methods that can be used in a foresight exercise and each is producing different
outcomes.
As a result, the task of any Foresight exercise is to establish an appropriate role for
any method(s) used. In the SoC Foresight approach the basis for choosing which
method, or rather which combination of methods to use is the particular context and
nature of the issue under examination, namely Cloud-based education. More

A Review of Cloud-based Futures and Methodologies

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