GAFE

GAFE is the abbreviation for Google Apps For Education, and it is a free service provided to schools for cloud based storage, content creation and collaboration by Google. Your school is taking part in Google / Chromebook pilot to collect data in order determine whether these tools meet our student's needs.

So why is this important to you, and why should you take the time to understand how to use these tools? Well, to make good decisions on your behalf, your school needs your input. We need to know if you think these tools are a good alternative to the current system you use to store and create files, and we want to know if a Chromebook is a suitable replacement for a Windows laptop. To provide us with useful information, you must experiment with Google and the Chromebooks to complete your classwork. Only this way, will you be able to provide an informed opinion.

There are four key terms you must understand about the Google Pilot Initiative:

  1. Google: (yes, the wildly popular search engine company) is providing your school with a productivity suite of applications for free. You may already be familiar with many of these tools such as YouTube and Gmail, but rest assured there is LOTS more to Google.

  2. Pilot: an experimental project designed to evaluate the usefulness of an idea. For the GPS pilot, this involves evaluating GAFE and Chromebooks as a student solution for document creation and file storage.

  3. Cloud: storing and retrieving files from the Internet as opposed to a local hard drive or USB drive. Access to files in the cloud takes place anywhere you have Internet access (like at home), and from a large selection of computing devices.

  4. Chromebook: a laptop computer that runs the Google Chrome operating system instead of Windows or MAC operating systems. This device is specifically designed to be used with Google