Cloud Computing and the G-Drive

If you are a district thinking about 1:1 computer usage and are considering netbooks, then you will quickly become familiar with the term cloud computing. In brief, it means having files and resources shared over the network, allowing more capabilities and requiring less of the user's workstation.

The way things are changing, hard drives in computers may become obsolete, if not severely less important. Fast internet connections make online storage retrieval as quick as hard drive storage retrieval. Web 2.0 technologies have made it possible for files to be saved on other servers already. Now, Google is planning on releasing a G-drive, which would be a large amount of online storage capable of holding more than your entire hard drive (think: huge media files such as movies and music). And in keeping with Google's past history of innovation, the G-drive might have new functions that greatly enhance your productivity, just as Google Reader, Google Docs, and GMail have done.

What is the impact? If districts take into consideration this when planning, they can take the money saved from purchasing netbooks over notebooks and invest that into a faster connection for more users. As technology advances, the district will have invested wisely, looking towards the future.