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"Word clouds can help students analyze documents written by others as well as documents of their own creation. By copying the text of a document into a word cloud generator your students can quickly see the words that appear most frequently in that document. Word clouds can also be used to help students see which words that they have frequently used in their own works. Have your students create word clouds of their work during the revision process of writing a story or essay. The word cloud will quickly show students which words they have used the most. Then ask them to think about synonyms for the words that they have used most often in their writings. " T/H R.Byrne

"I first wrote about word clouds in 2010, but six years later I'm updating the topic with updated apps, tools, and ideas. Below discover activities and web tools and apps to create word clouds. Get your students to create their own word clouds to express themselves. " This blog entry offers 35+ activities to do with word clouds, including vocabulary buiding and poetry.

"If you're like me you probably have accounts on more than one cloud storage service. I have accounts on Box, Google Drive, Dropbox, and SugarSync that I use regularly. MultCloud is a service that allows me to tie them all together in one place. MultCloud does more than just provide a single log-in for all of the cloud services that I use. It also allows me to move files between services with a simple drag-and-drop." T/H R Byrne, though I don't have that many cloud servers, this might make sense if you are reaching the free limits in your account(s).

The Future of Learning: can it be a school in the cloud. This 22+ min. talk is inspiring for those who love technology and futurist thinking. He aks for help in designing the "School in the Cloud, a learning lab in India, where children can explore and learn from each other -- using resources and mentoring from the cloud." Are we still creating for a machine that no longer exists?

"Wordle is a toy for generating "word clouds" from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends. " Really simple, easy to use. Create from a URL or type/paste in text. Can be a useful way for students to think about important new vocabulary they are learning, the meaning of a book or essay they have read, etc.

Let's you create word clouds with specific shapes. Still fairly limited, but more shapes will probably be coming soon. See the Gallery. Compare to Wordle, which has a great deal of font and color variety. Word clouds might be used as a response to reading or a collection of vocabulary about a subject, or to create a logo for a project, etc.

These each render a different type of word cloud. Students can use them for project logos, or you can drop in text and see what the word frequency is. Tagul is one of the most interesting, as you can use a library of templates of different shapes.

Another fun way to create tag clouds in pretty colors and shapes. Good for exploring predominance of particular words in a text.

"Save content from everywhere. "Save articles, videos and stories from any publication, page or app. Curate your own space filled with everything you can't wait to learn." An online file cabinet, but doesn't seem to have a file organization system. Potentially a good tool for cloud bookmarking.

"Technology in the classroom no longer means simply having a computer available for students to use or presenting material through a PowerPoint presentation. Educational tech means utilizing aspects of the digital classroom within the traditional classroom-students use cloud technology to submit and review assignments, teachers facilitate class discussions through online platforms, and students collaborate through online media. These are new and revolutionary elements of learning and education that play an important role in our students' academic experience."

First part of 4 that cover Google Drive, Docs, etc. Excellent for students beginning to use all the tools on the cloud. However, no concessions are made for the non-native speaker. Try adding caption from the >CC button atthe bottom of the video in order to help NNSs.

"Tynker is a new computing platform designed specifically to teach children computational learning and programming skills in a fun and imaginative way. Tynker is inspired by Scratch from MIT. It is a completely browser-based implementation written using Open Web standards such as Javascript, HTML5, CSS3 and does not use Flash. "Tynker's language extensions, built-in physics engine, character editors and other tools make it fun and easy for kids to unleash their creativity. Schools love Tynker because it offers them an easy to use cloud-hosted system for delivering a customized Computer Science course across multiple grades with a ready to use curriculum, classroom management and more. Tynker is the platform of choice at many leading schools - see what educators are saying." This looks like an interesting, creative way to unleash students' curiosity. I'm assuming it's for younger kids, but older students may enjoy it too.

There is no organizational system to speak of, but there are lots of good tips and tricks for teachers in each of the categories of short video clips in this cloud-sourced site. Good science and math clips, but many other subjects as well. You'll have to comb through the folders to see.

Excellent explanatory article covering various options, including Cloud storage and how to get around its problems with an app or QR, creating a bookmarked Landing Page, and using features of a CMS, such as Edmodo or Schoology. Guest post from Beth Holland of EdTechTeacher.org. Comparable work-arounds would be available for non-Apple smart tablets as well.

"Blogging apps make it possible for students to record their observations and those of others from almost anywhere (click here for the mobile apps for the most popular blog platforms). Here are three mobile blogging activities that you might have students try on your next field trip." R. Byrne suggests 3 lessons using Animoto for mobile, podcasting with Audioboo or Sound Cloud, and picture enhancement with ThingLink or PicCollage. More ideas in the links below the entry.

"Have students create a Pinterest board with 10 pins that summarizes them. Ask students to create a 30 second podcast that introduces themselves. Then allow students to present them or play them on separate devices as an audio gallery. Create a classroom blog and ask each student to write a blog post introducing themselves to the rest of the classroom. Have students create a quick comic strip to describe themselves or to recreate a recent funny moment in their lives. Use PollEverywhere to ask students interesting questions and get to know them as a class, like their favorite subjects, bands or TV shows. Use GoogleForms or SurveyMonkey to survey students about their interests, academic inclinations, and background info - a 21st century alternative to the "Getting to Know You" info sheet! Have students create word clouds to describe themselves and share with the rest of the class. Have students go on a QR code scavenger hunt in teams to get to know each other and learn about your classroom rules in a fun, engaging way. Ask students to create their own Voki avatars that introduce themselves to the class. Encourage them to be creative with the backgrounds, characters and details of the avatar to reflect their own personalities and preferences. Have students create graffiti online that speaks to their interests and personalities and share with the class." A nice set of ready-made lessons using readily available apps on the computer.

"Discover, purchase, and share educational apps, books, and videos easily with Google Play for Education - a new online destination just for schools." "Browse content by grade, subject, or standard; purchase with school PO (no credit card required); distribute apps via cloud." "This page also shows how to set up tables to allow use of content and to find approved apps."

You may find it extremely useful to upload files to a secure site to share to another of your own computers or with collaborative associates and students. This site offers 15 GB storage to begin, a good deal more than Dropbox. Get it while it's still free.

If you haven't found that your printer will print to pdf file, you can use this on the cloud to convert files to pdf.

"Awesome cloud-based information management tool that enables users to collect, highlight, access and share a variety of information, on a variety of devices." Short video shows the many ways to use Diigo to archive good websites.