9. Moving to the Cloud
The proposed framework will provide a distributed
computing environment for entire Schools, colleges and
institutions in Kenya as well as extended environments,
thereby creating further economies of scale by eliminating
redundant resources and centralizing and simplifying
maintenance for over-burdened IT staff. Schools and
campuses can be connected using secure WAN links, and
centralized servers and software resources can be accessed
using virtual desktops located anywhere. With the proliferation of cloud-based applications, students can take
advantage of collaborative solutions such as Google Apps
for Education, invite their classmates to review their work,
and complete their work in the lab, the classroom, or at home.
For support staff, a cloud-based system can substantially
reduce their load, leveraging efficiencies across the
nationwide or statewide school network. The problem of
overcrowded classrooms or distance learning challenges can
be surmounted through virtual classrooms, with students
attending class in their own homes on their own computers,
with the teacher being present hundreds of miles away. Most
schools will not have sufficient hardware or software to
provide students a complete learning experience. This
problem is especially pronounced in the technical and
science fields.
However, cloud-based approaches using virtual desktop
infrastructure can pave the way by enabling access to
resources that would be impractical to provide in a PC-based
environment. Professors would deliver their course content
while travelling etc. Some countries are already moving in
this direction. In early 2011, the Higher Education Funding
Council for England announced a plan to allocate £12.5
million to a new program that will fund shared services in
cloud computing at colleges and universities across the
country.