Google Drive Arrives Today

I've always loved Google Apps and have used the Google Docs with my colleagues and students. Storage space is limited to 2GB, so when I read about the new Google Drive which was introduced today, I was very happy. Here's some of its great features:

• 5GB storage (Free account)
• Upload and share your files, which can include videos, photos, PDF's etc.
• Google Docs are built into Google Drive, so accessing your files is easy
• Share and collaborate with others
• Google Drive can be installed on your PC or Mac at home
• Download the app for your Android phone (iPhone app is in the works...)
• Google drive is able to identify OCR, (optical character recognition) which means any scanned text can be recognized in a search. (You can't edit the text)
• If you are looking for increased storage space, you can upgrade to  25GB/month, ($2.49) 100GB, ($4.99/month) or 1TB for $49.99/month.

Here's a video overview of Google Drive:

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Google Apps For Education: Is Your School Connected?

Since last year, I have been trying to get my district to make the transition to Google Apps for Education.With free Gmail account for every student, access to Google Docs for all, collaboration is easy. Relying on Google's server, (ours crashed a month ago and had to be replaced-$$) schools have their files automatically backed up and protected from viruses. Google support is excellent, and these are just a few of the schools using Google Apps: Brown University, Wesleyan University, Oregon Public Schools, Boston University, Vanderbuilt University and Notre Dame University. If you would like to see more information or attend a webinar, Google has a treasure-trove of tutorials for you here.

Just remember: you need a functioning network with adequate bandwidth. Otherwise, you will never get to the cloud.

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