The Silver Lining: A Teaching Case Using Google Docs to Illustrate Cloud Computing Concepts

As Cloud Computing becomes an increasingly important technology strategy and solution for businesses, it is important for today’s students to be aware of the various services that the Cloud offers. While many first-year college students have heard of the term Cloud Computing and used Google Docs, a popular web-based office suite of applications for collaboration, their knowledge of how the Cloud is used in a business environment is limited. This paper describes an introductory lesson that builds on student familiarity with Google Docs to illustrate the concepts of Infrastructure, Software, Data, and Platform as a Service. The paper concludes with student reflections on their learning from this lesson based on anecdotal and survey data.