Welcome to Alberta Computers for Schools

 

Computers for Schools (CFS) is a Canada-wide initiative providing refurbished computers - at little or no cost to recipients - to Canadian schools, public libraries, and non-profit learning organizations.

This site contains information about the Alberta program (click on contents to the left, or see our Video).

For information about the national program (English and en français), please click here.

What's New

Except for "Home Access" (see below), the main aspects of our program for this school year remain as described at Available Computers.

We cannot provide computers directly to individuals. However we do receive many requests from (or on behalf of) individuals – mainly for special needs students or for students without a computer at home. To address this situation schools (not individuals) may apply for a limited number of computers to distribute to students for home use. It will be up to the school to identify recipients based on “special needs” (such as students with low vision), or financial need of the student’s family. Computers provided under this “home access” dimension of our program will normally be desktops. Laptop requests will be considered only for coded special needs students.

For additional information concerning this new “home access” dimension to our program please call us at 780 427 5262 or 780 427 9002.

ACCESS TELEVISION: ACCESS has produced – and broadcast – several promotional videos for us over the past few years. We sincerely thank ACCESS for its generous contribution to the Alberta CFS program. To see the most recent video (January 2010) , click here.

To see previous videos, click here, and here.

OUR STUDENTS: This summer talented young workers in the Edmonton shop produced a video providing an updated overview of our program. Sincere thanks to:

• Shaun Boddez
• Matthew Pohl
• Peter Roland

To see the video, please click here

We continue to encourage applicants to request desktop units. Though we are receiving increasing numbers of laptops, demand considerably exceeds supply. So if you wish to receive your computers much more quickly over the next few months, we strongly suggest you request desktops.

In June 2009 we distributed a total of 1830 computers - our best month ever. As of December 31, 2009 our grand total since the Alberta CFS program began in 1994, is 126,743 computers and 5,041 printers. In calendar year 2008 we distributed a total of 14, 774 computers.

In January 2008 we reached a major milestone: distribution of our 100,000th computer. To celebrate – and especially to thank those who made this possible – we held events in Edmonton at Victoria School for the Performing and Visual Arts; and in Calgary at Crescent Heights High School. For a selection of photos of the two events please click here and here.

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