A digital storytelling event

1. 12 The Malta Independent | Thursday 31 March 2016
Cloud Computing
for SMEs
Prompting Cre
writing which p
using technolog
T
he widespread pro-
liferation of digital
technologies has
transformed us into
a knowledge-inten-
sive society. New revolution-
ary digital technology trends
will continue to change the
ICT domain and create new
opportunities at all levels. For
decades, public and private
organisations and individuals
have addressed their technol-
ogy needs in the traditional
way by investing in high-end
hardware and software. How-
ever, the increased availability
of ubiquitous computing is
creating a new paradigm, one
that enables the consumption
of ICT over the Internet as a
service. This new way of de-
livering ICT is called “Cloud
Computing”. This phenome-
non will play a major role in
the ICT domain over the next
five years and will “funda-
mentally shift competitive
landscapes by providing a
new platform for creating and
delivering business value”
(How cloud computing en-
ables process and business
model innovation, Berman et
al).
Cloud computing is already
playing a major role in our
everyday lives. Services such
as Google Apps provided by
the Google Cloud Platform,
iTunes and Apple iCloud,
Amazon Cloud Drive, and
Office Online are examples of
applications provisioned over
the cloud. As these examples
demonstrate, the cloud can be
used to deliver a vast range of
services.
Other benefits offered by
cloud computing include
reduced costs by paying only
for the services and infrastruc-
ture being used; reduced cap-
ital investment; on-demand
processing and storage re-
sources; and the enabling of
entirely new innovative busi-
ness services.
Cloud computing also brings
substantial new challenges
such as data security and pri-
vacy, reliability of the cloud,
governance and interoperabil-
ity of data. However, with the
introduction of industry stan-
dards that address the techno-
logical, management and
regulatory issues, these chal-
lenges will be overcome.
To this effect, the Malta
Communications Authority
(MCA) and Malta Information
Technology Agency (MITA)
are organising a day seminar
that will focus on the benefits
and challenges in cloud
computing implementations
and deployment and the latest
cloud computing
technologies.
Keynote speakers for this
cloud computing event
include Dr. Tobias Höllwarth
a founding member of
EuroCloud Austria and editor
of the book “Migrating to the
Cloud” and Maurice van der
Woude general director of
EuroCloud Europe.
Hon Dr Josè Herrera
Parliamentary Secretary for
Competitiveness and
Economic Growth will close
the event and launch an e-
book titled “Cloud Computing
Guidelines for SMEs”.
I
t is interesting that, though
technology has permeated
all our daily, business and
leisure endeavours, there
is one thing which I see
that has remained stable in all
this mumbo-jumbo of different
available gadgets. Storytelling
has remained intact, namely
that, in essence, it is still the
story in itself which in actual fact
mesmerises the children and
helps them to imagine and stim-
ulates their ‘neurons’ to make
more and more connections.
On the 29th March, 2016 a cre-
ative writing which promotes
storytelling using technology,
took place at the MITA Data
Centre. This pilot project was
novel in the fact that a digital
storytelling app was used. The
core was still the story itself
which was built by the children
themselves. The digital app
only helped to: (i) take photo-
graphs of the coloured pictures
drawn, (ii) record the voices;
and (iii) make the story avail-
able in a secure environment for
the children to listen to later.
Thus, the app in itself only as-
sisted in making the drawing
and the voice of the children
shared securely online.
Additionally, a group of stu-
dent teachers who are cur-
rently in their third year
reading for their bachelors de-
gree in education, were also
present at this event, as part of
their observation practice.
They expressed that the experi-
ence was a positive one, and
that the students were engaged
and extremely participatory
using the tools provided. The
student teachers pointed out
that the young students had
the opportunity to freely ex-
press their ideas to write cre-
ative stories and positively
influence them on the impor-
tance of reading.