Changes to Google Education

[caffrey]

Google being Google

 

https://edu.google.com/products/workspace-for-education/editions/

 

New storage policy too

 

https://workspaceupdates.googleblog.com/2021/02/introducing-google-workspace-for-education.html

 

We're only using 9TB across our domain so not so bad

 

Edit looks like lots of new stuff was announced, https://educationonair.withgoogle.com/events/learning-with-google-2021

 

Going to watch that later, but the highlights seem to be here - https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/17/google-to-roll-out-slate-of-over-50-updates-for-classroom-meet-and-other-online-education-tools/

Edited February 18, 2021 by caffrey

[Sanchez]

Do we know if the 100TB limit is just for users or will it include things like shared drives and data in vault?

 

We have over 30TB in user areas but I suspect we'll be over the limit of it includes all areas.

[caffrey]

Not sure but the new enterprise tier gives 20GB to each user as well as the pooled 100TB limit, which should be enough for most users

[RLR]

You can compare SKUs here:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1UNOdtbKLqD7r9-ddGwaJk0SgnVPPHDA_OV6pBlISgxY/view#gid=865117577

[jthompson]

The new Classroom features look like they could be pretty useful. Some basic student engagement metrics for teachers to see, rich text and third-party app integration.

 

Meet allowing multiple staff members to have host controls will help, too, although we may not be needing to run lessons in Meet for very much longer.

 

Once we're past the whole COVID situation, I can see us dropping back to the free tier if we're no longer relying on Google Meet for lessons. I can't see the Classroom app-integration making the T&L upgrade a deal-breaker for us anytime soon.

[Ditto]

I guess Google monetising the Education version of G Suite was inevitable, despite repeated claims of 'no change' for many years. I guess the "too good to be true times" are over, especially for the limitless storage. I suspect it still offers value for money, but for schools that feel they need more than the free version, it's going to be a hard pill to swallow. School budgets have been stretched for years, and Covid is and will continue to make life even more challenging. My governance school has had it's voluntary income slashed in the last year and it does have a direct impact of the quality of education. I would think the vast majority of schools would want the gmail, classroom and other audit logs, so that is now a cost. It will be very interesting to see a breakdown of which version they are running in a year or two. I'd also be interest to see how much revenue is generated to Google from the UK education sector.

[Ditto]

I've only skim read the blog, but is the Enterprise version still an option - it might offer best value?

[localzuk]

I would think the vast majority of schools would want the gmail, classroom and other audit logs, so that is now a cost.

They've only ever been an added cost. The features in the existing free version are remaining free. The extra audit logs are just that, extra.

[jthompson]

I've only skim read the blog, but is the Enterprise version still an option - it might offer best value?

 

Yes, in the sense that it's now become 'Google Workspace for Education Plus'. The pricing for that has changed though, from per teacher per month to per student per year, so you'd need to compute what difference that would be. Depending on the features you wanted Enterprise for, you might be able to get away with the free tier and adding on the 'Teaching & Learning Upgrade' for only as many teachers as you need it for, since that one is a per teacher monthly cost.

 

The free tier retains audit logs for Gmail. I think it's just that the higher tiers add the BigQuery stuff.

[Ditto]

Live since 3:00pm. I hope it remains available once finished.

So, is Fundamentals 100% equivalent to G Suite for Education, except for 100TB space rather than 'unlimited'?

 

*** EDIT ****

A replay will be available for you to watch anytime after February 19th, 2021.

The presentation was highly polished, highly professional and weaved the story around the pandemic in a global way. It mixed educational stories from around the globe, and in spite of it being very Google promotional, it conveyed a lot of information about how G Suite for Education is moving forwards. There are a number of new features in the pipeline that I'm sure many will look forward to using. For me, the stand out was the focus on accessibility and seeing a blind History teacher in Korea teaching using Google Classroom. Inspirational and so fantastic to see technology being used in such a positive way.

Edited February 18, 2021 by Ditto

[jthompson]

So, is Fundamentals 100% equivalent to G Suite for Education, except for 100TB space rather than 'unlimited'?

 

There looks to be a few other things which will become unavailable in Fundamentals. The spreadsheet that @RLR linked to above (http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/220502-changes-google-education.html#post1887427) compares what's in GSE now vs what's in Fundamentals.

[Ditto]

Looks to be CloudSearch only? So on reflection, most schools on the free version should be OK.

[jthompson]

Other ones that lose a tick from GSE to Fundamentals are:

Secure LDAP; Advanced endpoint management; Manage document approvals, Manage Drive metadata (custom labels and fields); Dial-in for Meet.

[Ditto]

Other ones that lose a tick from GSE to Fundamentals are:

Secure LDAP; Advanced endpoint management; Manage document approvals, Manage Drive metadata (custom labels and fields); Dial-in for Meet.

 

I had spotted the LDAP and Advanced Endpoint management, not sure why I didn't list it! For the metadata and document approvals, I ignored that as it is currently only in BETA. Also ignored Dial-in as it's a US feature only. Perhaps some of the newly developed features won't get to the free version so quickly, of at all. Key question is how many schools currently on G Suite for Education will feel the need to move to above Fundamentals and need to find more from their budget.

[rogerdnixon]

I've raised Secure LDAP with Google direct and that's a mistake - its part of Fundamentals. Advanced Endpoint management has only ever been an Enterprise feature.

[pirran]

We're using just shy of 200TB here and although we have some enterprise licences too we're going to get hit hard. At least we have a year to reduce our storage usage.

It looks like our Alumni are going to miss out the most though, which is real shame.

 

One thing that isn't clear to me quite yet is:

 

When running storage reports we can see the total space used, however this is for drive, email etc. Presently i'm not 100% on whether this actually includes google docs, sheets etc as that hasn't counted in the past. I suspect it does, i also can't imagine they account for much of our storage utilisation!

Edited March 4, 2021 by pirran

[Steve21]

We're using just shy of 200TB here and although we have some enterprise licences too we're going to get hit hard. At least we have a year to reduce our storage usage.

It looks like our Alumni are going to miss out the most though, which is real shame.

 

If you're a large college/uni etc with a lot of students they are offering free upgrades, but if it's a "normal" size school it sounds like that's a lot of wasted storage! How many students roughly is that?

 

Steve

[pirran]

We're a small Uni / College (Arts). We've around 2000 students on roll, however with video, game design, photography etc. we appear to rack up storage use!

 

Due to the 'free' space, we also have a huge video archive from a plex server that pulls down a lot of UK broadcasts for the library.

Edited March 4, 2021 by pirran