Email provision for students

[BJG]

For the past few years we've opted into an email system provided by our LEA, which generates Gmail-like accounts for students for local schools automatically, based on their MIS (we use SIMS). It generally works and it's very low-maintenance for us, but there are a few niggles with it, we don't have much direct control over it, and the SMT has asked us to look for a smiliar alternative that we can control ourselves.

 

Staff and students here are used to Gmail accounts and the associated storage, Google classroom etc., but we haven't looked at creating/managing these ourselves. So...how do you do it...? Is this a common / straightforward approach to student email...?

Edited October 17, 2017 by BJG

[rogerdnixon]

Many places use G Suite for Education. Its straightforward to setup and easy to manage (we have used it for around 7 years). The basic google instructions can be found at https://support.google.com/a/answer/2856827?hl=en

[Garacesh]

We've used both Office 365 and G-Suite, and whilst we've only just got G-Suite sorted I think it'll end up being the 'clear winner' over 365 because the feedback we've had so far is that Classroom completely trumps OneNote.

 

G Suite for Education is free and gives you (I think) 10,000 licensed accounts. You can set up an Active Directory sync to do most of the work for you, and if you want to do more fanciful things like importing SIMS data into Google Classroom, you'll need a third-party to do that for you (we've just started using SalamanderSoft and the results are very positive)

 

Worth mentioning that if you were considering going down the Chromebook route, G Suite does not give you Chromebook licenses for free. You gotta buy those per-device. But they are transferable at no cost for when the kids wreck a chromebook and you end up replacing it.

 

If you don't have either 365 or Google setup, my personal recommendation would be to go down the Google route. It doesn't take too long to set up (LDAP queries are a pain if you're not familiar with them already, but they're easy enough to figure out with something like an LDAP browser). The one thing Google is missing that 365 has is the ability to administer other users' drives and emails. With 365 you can basically just impersonate any user you like. With Google you have to use Vault and run reports and it's probably better from a DPA standpoint but it's a bit more hassle than just being able to go in and have a snoop*. But that's manageable once you figure out how Vault works.

 

* Obviously this scenario presumes you have probable cause to snoop, like you've found pirated files in their network homefolder and want to check that they aren't storing any in their Drive, you're not just snooping for no reason.

[BJG]

We've now signed up for G-Suite, using the same domain we used for Office 365. Next basic question...how do the two email systems interrelate...? If the school's working with both types of email, should we come up with two different username conventions, or do they meld somehow...?

[Garacesh]

We chose to do ours with different domains to completely negate that issue. Staff accounts from our internally-hosted email system (that can send and receive emails to/from other domains) use .uk, whereas with cloud hosts that can only send/receive from the same domain, 365 users .net and Google uses .org

 

I'd imagine trying to have both cloud services trying to operate under the same DNS address would be a really bad idea

[robsonma]

GMail is very simple to set up, You cant use both, as you have to point your mailserver to the one email client, So you will need to use another domain.

1. Sign up with Gmail

2.Add Pupils and groups and restrictions

3.Go to whereever your domain is hosted and pont the MX Records to the GSuite Servers

 

[TABLE=class: nice-table]

[TR]

[TH=bgcolor: #F5F5F5, align: left]Name/Host/Alias[/TH]

[TH=bgcolor: #F5F5F5, align: left]Time to Live (TTL*)[/TH]

[TH=bgcolor: #F5F5F5, align: left]Record Type[/TH]

[TH=bgcolor: #F5F5F5, align: left]Priority[/TH]

[TH=bgcolor: #F5F5F5, align: left]Value/Answer/Destination[/TH]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Blank or @[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]3600[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]MX[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]1[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Blank or @[/TD]

[TD]3600[/TD]

[TD]MX[/TD]

[TD]5[/TD]

[TD]ALT1.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Blank or @[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]3600[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]MX[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]5[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]ALT2.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD]Blank or @[/TD]

[TD]3600[/TD]

[TD]MX[/TD]

[TD]10[/TD]

[TD]ALT3.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM[/TD]

[/TR]

[TR]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]Blank or @[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]3600[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]MX[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]10[/TD]

[TD=bgcolor: #E6E6E6]ALT4.ASPMX.L.GOOGLE.COM[/TD]

[/TR]

[/TABLE]

 

Test it then start to migrate email's ect there are some tools that can help.

[Sheridan]

We've been G Suite for about 5 years now - absolutely no issues at all and with the unlimited storage its a bargain! Staff and students all have accounts and the Admin settings let you change things for separate groups.

 

We have 2000 accounts here, and use the GADS to synch with our AD and it works very well. We used to host Exchange/OWA but moved away from this as no matter how cheap you could get it, free is always better.

[BJG]

The reason I went with the same domain was on the basis of the answers in this thread, about using Google apps with Office 365:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/blue-skies/184186-office-365-google-apps.html

 

We use both G-Suite and O365 using the same domain name. Works fine. Best of both worlds. We tend to push staff to O365 and the students towards Google.

 

That was what I had in mind...

 

*edit*

 

Hmm, well, with no further tinkering, we seem able to log into either Gmail or Office 365 using the same email address and send/receive OK.

 

Seems neat, but confusing...!

Edited November 16, 2017 by BJG

[BJG]

...OK, correction. What we're now finding is:

 

1) User can sign into O365 or GSuite with the same email address and successfully send messages.

2) Email arrives in Office 365, but not GSuite.

[zag]

No need to overcomplicate it. Choose one system and use it for all staff and students.

[BJG]

No need to overcomplicate it. Choose one system and use it for all staff and students.

 

Agreed, but I've been asked if I can implement both, so trying to figure out if that's doable and how it would work...

 

*edit*

 

Perhaps this way we can stick to O365 for email for everyone, but people can still use the same credentials for Google Classroom...? (Because that's the main reason for having GSuite. But I'm not familiar enough with the Google Classroom workflow to know if it makes sense to use it without a Google email account...)

Edited November 16, 2017 by BJG

[Garacesh]

I'm not well-versed in Exchange, but I don't suspect you can have both receiving email if your account names are the same.

 

I'm gently pushing people away from 365 towards Google (mostly because Classroom is better than OneNote and we've had issues with GCSE kids doing all their work in OneNote and then the teacher leaves and their work gets deleted and it's not good at all) but I predict we'll have both running side-by-side for at least a year. Maybe two.