Over the past 20 years the internet and technology boom has transformed education teaching approaches and techniques. The introduction of online courses has brought remote communication and collaboration to the center of the discussion. It’s no longer an option for faculty and staff to put their head in the sand and ignore this technological revolution. Even traditional courses and student service offices must engage in communicating and collaborating with students where they are, both in person and online. The presentation will include a walk-through of Professor Theis’ history of integrating cloud-based technology tools in his courses. There have been many ups and downs, successes and failures. He’ll then explain how he’s using one primary application called Slack to engage his students and prepare them for similar tools they’ll be expected to use in the workplace. He’ll discuss a step-by-step process to help higher education professionals determine if, when, and how to introduce or integrate industry-related cloud-based tools into their work with students. We’ll walk through the questions we need to ask when making these decisions. How is my student demographic currently communicating with their faculty and with each other? What are the standard communication and collaboration tools in the industry they may enter in the next few years? Are there processes or tools that I’m currently using that can be easily replaced with a cloud-based technology? Which tools are free for practitioners and students? Finally, he’ll help attendees create a plan and timeline for integrating one or two cloud-based technologies into their work.