Notes on Considering Google Apps for Education Implementation
I’ve been using Gaggle for student email for several years, first the free accounts as needed by students at my former school, and for the past three and a half school years the paid accounts for all students. Prior to using Gaggle, neither school had email accessible by students outside the school. It was a simple way to provide all students with a similar email account for classroom communications. The added bonus with Gaggle was the filtering for most inappropriate content, a feature that really pleased many of our parents, especially in the Middle School. The paid accounts also meant that students didn’t need to deal with the advertising and such typically part of traditional free accounts.
Over the past year, Gaggle has upgraded their end-user interface. It makes access for students much easier, but the administrative interface has suffered significantly. It’s not as easy to administer (import, create, delete, etc.) student accounts. We’ve also suffered multiple outages and issues with student access without notice. I’ve always been one to keep options for improved tool open, but these issues nudged me to look more actively. Conveniently enough, Google Apps for Education have become a great tool for many schools. The bandwagon looks pretty tempting from a short distance, so I’m prepping for a transition I’m hoping my fellow tech team members will support. Here are some resources that I think will be quite helpful, many of which were mentioned in recent articles by Christopher Dawson on his ZDNet Blog.
- Google Edu Apps how-to, Part 1 and Part 2 (Dawson’s narrative of his experiences in getting started using Google Edu Apps)
Pages from Google (I realize you could probably find these yourself, but it’s nice to have specific links)
- Top 10 Reasons to Use Google Apps
- Welcome to Google Apps
- Google Apps Education Edition Agreement (Yes, you should actually read this)
- Security and Privacy
- Successful Deployments for Educational Institutions – Examples of how various institutions (mostly post-secondary when I looked) use Google Apps
- Google Apps K-12 Planning – Outline of suggested steps
- Get Apps for Your School – Form for applying/getting started
- Google Apps Admin Help – Admin start page
- Using Postini with Google Messaging
- Uploading multiple users – From spreadsheet or export
- Google Apps Directory Sync – Such as LDAP
- Google Apps Training – Training resources from Google
- Google Apps Lesson Plans – Lesson plans created by Google Certified Teachers (Which I’m not, yet)
- Google Apps Classroom Activities – Overview of ideas for integration
- Google Apps Education Community – Collaborative site for sharing ideas and resources
- Tips and Tricks for Deploying Google Apps - From the Official Google Blog
Other resources (mostly from Google Certified Teachers)
- Creating ePortfolios w/Google Apps
- Who Owns Google Apps Content - From Doug Johnson
- NECC 2009 Presentations on Google Apps
- Google Apps @ Eisenhower – Nice training page created by Harold Olejarz for his school
- Byron Apps – Another great start page for a school
- Google Technologies for Wichita Public Schools
- 101 Google Docs Tips for Students + Educators
- Google Teacher Academy Resources
- Google in Education Ning
- Empowering Students with Google Apps Education Edition – also by Harold Olejarz
- Google Workshops for Educators
- GoogleApps in the Classroom from Dan Rezac
- Learning Continuity with Google Tools from Acalanes UHSD
- Using Gaggle with Google Apps (CIPA Compliance using Gaggle for filtering)
- Googlize your Staff Development
- 10 Google Forms for the Classroom (from Tom Barrett)
- Computing in the Clouds (from ISTE)
I’ll keep you posted on how our progress goes. I’m not sure we need the Gaggle filtering w/Google Apps (would like to hear from schools trying it). Is your school using Google Apps for Education? If so, I’d appreciate your input. Any other useful resources to share?
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Comments
Tami,
We’ve had issues syncing our Active Directory w/Google Apps. To get around this, we’re going to use the Google/Moodle option.
First of all, thank you for gathering so many resources. We are in the process of rolling out Gmail accounts for students, and I will be passing on this post to my team as we consider further uses of Google apps.
For some time I have been pushing toward the use of alternative office apps in schools. Few can argue that Google apps, OpenOffice, or Zoho Office provide students will all the productivity tools they can possibly need without the costs of MSOffice (I know that MSOffice is coming out with a free online versions, so this may jump into the mix).
I thinks the problem with schoolwide implementation of these alternatives is not one of capability, but one of perception. Teachers and parents feel that students are using a substandard product. Use of alternatives also threatens the comfort we have with what we have always used.
Rather than move to one or another alternative, I wish we could develop a “platform agnostic” approach to tools. We don’t prescribe the type of pen a student uses to write a traditional assignment, similarly we need to adopt a common standard for submissions (.doc is fine, .docx must die!) and allow students to get there by their own path.
With Google Apps we finally have a name that most people recognize and respect (when I say Zoho, people cross their eyes). On top of this, the sharing and collaborating tools might finally intrigue some into taking a look outside the microsoft box.
Tear down the walls!
Greg,
I get your point about perceptions of anything one doesn’t pay for (or pay as much for) being substandard. This year when we rolled out our netbook tablets, I heard from a couple of students that their parents thought we were using “substandard” hardware. These kids, quite happy with the machines they were using, had to defend the hardware to their parents. Really, it was a product of some of our own making. We’d had a laptop program for years and had been using “professional grade” laptops – far more machine (and more expense) than kids needed or than was necessary in the classroom. We’d been told we needed this level of laptop for durability. Now that we finally found hardware that was made SPECIFICALLY for kids and was much more affordable, parents thought it was substandard. Price doesn’t necessarily buy quality or support. It’s the same with software – so many people are tied to expensive tools because of their perception that expensive is better. I doubt we can change the perception overnight, but the concept of “platform agnostic” tools reframes the discussion in a more thoughtful way.
I’m curious how the same parents would react to Moodle (an freely available, opensource and yet high-quality tool) instead of Blackboard or Linux instead of Windows…
We transitioned away from Firstclass to Google Apps early last summer. I wrote about the good here: http://middleschoolblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-apps-for-education-rating-our.html and the bad here: http://middleschoolblog.blogspot.com/2009/10/google-apps-for-education-rating-our_04.html
I’m quite pleased with our new system, especially considering what we had in firstclass. There is a false perception that you own the data less when using a cloud based environment like Google…after the experience of transitioning away from Firstclass, I can report that we actually had FAR LESS control of our data in firstclass in comparison to Google even though the firstclass mail server lived on our own network. This is due to the fact that Firstclass is terrible in terms of standards compliance. It was impossible to migrate user mailboxes out of firstclass into google because Firstclass doesn’t use standards communications protocols. If at some point in the future we decided to migrate away from Google, the transition will be much easier as Google is compliant with modern standards and protocols.
If filtering is a big question for you right now, just know that Google currently offers postini filtering to K12 public/non profits for free right now.
I don’t think you want to compare google docs word processor to open office, MS Word, Pages, or other desktop publishing apps. Google Docs is a word processor replacement indeed, but it is definitely NOT a desktop publishing replacement. I definitely believe that schools no longer need to purchase a costly office suite like MS Word when powerful free options like IBM Symphony and Open Offfice exist.
Thank you for this terrific list of resources!!!!!
I have been looking to get my colleagues involved with web2.0 tools and thought Google apps would be the easiest and most beneficial method of doing it. Your post gives me all the tools I need to get this done. Thanks a million!!!!!!!!!!!
I think Google Apps for Ed would be a great tool for collaborating. Getting a short staffed tech department to assist may not be easy. Gaggle has always been difficult to get rolling and I don’t know why. I’m going to make the push second semester and hope for next school year. Our kids are powering down when they come to school, ouch!