Abstract

The authors present their experience and practices of introducing cloud services, as a means to simplify the adoption of ICT in education, using Free/Open Source Software. The solution creates a hybrid cloud infrastructure, in order to provide a pre-installed virtual machine, acting as a server inside the school, providing desktop environment based on the Software as a Service cloud model, where legacy PCs act as stateless devices. Classroom management is accomplished using the application “Epoptes.” To minimize administration tasks, educational software is provided accordingly, either on-line or through repositories to automate software installation. The advantages of the hybrid cloud implementation, include services that are not completely dependent on broadband connections’ state, minimal cost, reusability of obsolete equipment, ease of administration, centralized management, patches and educational software provisioning and, above all, facilitation of the educational procedure.