30 May 2012

Google Drive, CloudOn, and Edmodo - A Winning Combination for the iPad in Education


For some time now, I have been an advocate for the use of Google Apps as well as the iPad.  Unfortunately, they don't always work together well.  Google Apps has some great features for content creation and collaboration and the iPad is an amazing device for learning, but the issue of being able to create content (in this case, documents, presentations and spreadsheets), collaborate on the creation of the content, and submit it to a teacher has continued to be an issue since the iPad was introduced.


Fortunately, this is no longer an issue thanks to some new features recently added to Edmodo and the CloudOn App.  For those new to these services, Edmodo is an educational social-networking service that allows teacher and students to work collaboratively online, including submitting assignments.  CloudOn is a cloud-based version of Microsoft Office which allows you to create and edit documents, presentations and spreadsheets on the iPad.  Recently, Edmodo added Google Drive/Docs integration into its service.  So, as long as you are logged in to you Google Account on your computer or tablet, you can access your files from Edmodo and submit them to others (either to a teacher as a grade, or if you are a teacher, as an assignment itself).  Just in the past few weeks, CloudOn has also added Google Drive integration (in addition to Dropbox and Box cloud services) to its service, so now iPad users have an effective way to create and edit documents, presentations, and spreadsheets on the iPad.


Using these three services in combination gives one the ability to create a document, edit it, and submit it to a teacher or group of students without ever using a full-fledged computer.  All you need it a Google account and Edmodo account (both free) and the Edmodo and CloudOn Apps (also both free).  This has the great feature of having all of your files being stored in the cloud.  The pending Google Drive App for iPad should also give additional functionality.

So, try it out and let me know what you think.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Always been a bit sceptical about Edmodo. Given that Cloudon allows you to store and edit documents in Dropbox and GoogleDrive, what does Edmodo actually add to the process? Be interested to hear your opinion.
Thanks

Ryan Folmer said...

Edmodo gives you the ability to collect, comment and grade assignments in a more efficient way. When having students submit via GoogleDrive, Dropbox, or (God forbid) email, it is much messier. Edmodo (along with all of it's other features) is much more streamlined.

Anonymous said...

How do I connect my CloudOn app to Google Drive? I don't see that option. I'm also concerned that it won't work with the way we do SSO in our district...