Google Apps

[harvester]

Hi All

I was wondering if any one is using Google Apps in their schools? Inparticular Google mail, I am considderiing using Google Mail for our email domain & connecting with Outlook. (Google has released an Exchange to GMAIL deployment tool).

Has/is anyone using GMail for their main school messageing system?

Thanks

[ajs]

I used it for about 2 years plus at my previous school.

There were a couple of glitches, especially when IE7 was released and Google had issues with attachments and temporary files, but they were mostly sorted by the time I left.

On the whole it worked quite well, but then we were moving from a setup that only allowed the admin staff to have email. They were the only ones who had real trouble moving over since they were used to Exchange/Outlook.

Other than that, it was the same problems that I'm sure lots of other edugeekers have come across: staff not sending emails to the correct list and spamming the entire school instead. etc etc ;-)

Personally, from an administration standpoint, I'd probably have preferred to go with Exchange but if your budget is limited (as mine was) then it was certainly a good move.

[f2mke]

Have a look re Google Apps and an integrated learning platform... Google Apps integrated Learning Platform released in the Google Marketplace!

PS Yes - Rolling out Google Apps for Education (same as professional version with no ads, etc...) to over 450 schools / 130,000 users. Going very well so far!

[kimclayton]

Hi
I am just considering Google Apps for education and the Microsoft Live@edu as alternative to the current provision from County, how did Norfolk arrive at the decision that GooGle Apps was the better option?

[plexer]

Norfolk has rolled out Google to all the schools in Norfolk.

Ben

[plexer]

They licked their finger and stuck it in the air

Ben

[zag]

Interesting, how do people get the email to auto log in from the desktop?

Exchange does this nicely but I'm not sure its possible with google mail and mandatory profiles.

[plexer]

They don't the google mail accounts we have are based upon a rbc unique id for every member of staff and pupil which is different to their network login.

Ben

[jcrewe]

I have Apps at my school and (almost) everything works great. Easy to set up and to manage groups of users (new functionality this year).
I recommend it highly for simplicity's sake. I have 50 users and for free it's great along with a decent support base in the forums.

I say 'almost' because after I installed Postini it continues to block a lot of list serve mail I receive but gives me a nice 'Quarantine summary' daily to users so they can get their messages delivered. Also the footer on outbound messages doesn't play nice with IE (any version) as the text refused to line break when viewed in IE...safari, firefox and chrome are fine.

[f2mke]

Hi
I am just considering Google Apps for education and the Microsoft Live@edu as alternative to the current provision from County, how did Norfolk arrive at the decision that GooGle Apps was the better option?

Hi Kim - Norfolk went through a comprehensive evaluation of both Live@Edu and Google Apps for Education, against a detailed statement of requirements and several supplier workshops. Google came the closest to meeting all requirements. I'm sure that you can get a more detailed insight by contacting ICT Solutions / Advisory Service.

[f2mke]

They don't the google mail accounts we have are based upon a rbc unique id for every member of staff and pupil which is different to their network login.

Ben

Hi - the Norfolk (RBC) ID is designed to be used as an alternative to your LDAP / AD login should you wish. Some high schools have already successfully implemented this. Google supports SAML and thus Shibboleth going forward. Account provisioning is via SIF - we have a Google SIF AGent

[f2mke]

They licked their finger and stuck it in the air

Ben

All stakeholders were involved in the comprehensive evaluation process including representatives (teachers and students) from schools.

[plexer]

Considering he is from somewhere in Suffolk, then ICT Solutions or the Advisory probably won't speak to him directly or he won't know how to contact them.

Granted you were not to know that he doesn't appear to be from a Norfolk school.

Thanks.

Ben

[plexer]

Hi - the Norfolk (RBC) ID is designed to be used as an alternative to your LDAP / AD login should you wish. Some high schools have already successfully implemented this. Google supports SAML and thus Shibboleth going forward. Account provisioning is via SIF - we have a Google SIF AGent

Yes I gather that is the case from talking to some people and with sif integration creation of my AD accounts should be easier as I can use the spreadsheet generated from this process to provide the information for my onsite provisioning of AD accounts, my only reservation is at the moment it's easier for us to find a user based on their year as we prefix their username with their year of entry. I suppose I could provision using their RBC ID but also prefix it with their year of entry.

All stakeholders were involved in the comprehensive evaluation process including representatives (teachers and students) from schools.

Yes I know that I was jesting I would also be keen to see a matrix matching the solutions to the requirements, is this available?

Thanks.

Ben

[CyberNerd]

Hi - the Norfolk (RBC) ID is designed to be used as an alternative to your LDAP / AD login should you wish. Some high schools have already successfully implemented this. Google supports SAML and thus Shibboleth going forward. Account provisioning is via SIF - we have a Google SIF AGent

Cound you give some more details about the Google SIF agent please. We currently provision all of our accounts through an overnight Active Directory Sync and then authenticate directly to AD via our Learning Platform.