KASBO 2011 - Google Apps
Premise of the presentation:
Google Apps can save your district money while providing services you may not already have such as Web based, globally accessible email with collaborative services. We're here to tell you essentially our experience with: 1. How we migrated our districts to Google Apps for Education 2. How it has been a benefit to our users to have access to Google Apps for Education
Rob: History: After much discussion from the ESSDACK group about their pros and cons of moving to Google Apps for Education and our over imposing budget crisis among the state, this was a no brainer for an easy way of saving time, money, and people resources. For our rollout to work during the course of a school semester though, dual mail delivery was chosen as the realm of "phasing" in our district deployment to allow for training and conversion of mail, contacts, and calendars. The process was easy to start by signing up for the Google account and verifying our domain. Plan: The problems that began to arise was how would we manage two different databases of users? After some time looking around, we came in discussion with Datatechnique of whom we utilize for our SIF infrastructure. They then provided us with the ConneXCloud to allow our users and passwords to be synced to Google. From this point we came up with the following rollout scenario: Our process involved the following: • • • •
Signing up for GAE and running a test phase on the apps Training individuals in our district in GAE who could then train staff/faculty Flashing over to GAE Email on the given date Using ConneXcloud to handle AD-Google synchronization for accounts
December 2009 - Move Support Services and District Office to Google Apps January 2010 - Move all blackberry users and shutdown BES Server February 2010 - Move 1st HS and 3 Elementary Schools over March 2010 - Move 2nd HS and 2 Middle Schools over April 2010 - Move the rest of the 3 Elementary Schools over April 30, 2010 - Move our MX record over to Google Training: Our Instructional Technology Trainers setup 2 one hour sessions in each building just after each building is migrated. This provides the easiest and most accurate information as far as what is converted and questions that may arise as the change. Our staff is moving from a client based email system (GroupWise) to a web based client. Not
having to support an email client provides a great workload off our techs in the buildings and allows a speedier transition. Our benefits include: •
Integrated Communication
◦ 7+ GBs of email storage lets you stop worrying about a full inbox. (And your IT people don't have to panic about storage) ◦ Integrated calendar manages your schedule, and reserves resources like lab rooms or laptop carts. ◦ Web-based applications are accessible from any computer, so students can work outside the classroom.
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"Anywhere, Anytime"
◦ Work on documents together, at the same time, from multiple locations. Everybody can participate. ◦ Sharing and privacy controls include domain-level security, to protect student information. ◦ Build class or project websiteswithout using HTML, so everyone can contribute and learn.
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Uptime
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Security and Protection
◦ 100% uptime for the last 1 1/2 years. ◦ Education pricing for Postini is free (usually $12/user per year) ◦ Define email filters to limit messages delivered to student or staff accounts. ◦ Customized email policies for different groups like faculty, staff and students. ◦ Email archiving available at a 66% discount with Google Message Discovery.
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Cost savings
◦ $23000 per year in client licenses for our email service (General Fund Dollars) $50,000 in 5 years on server replacement. (Capital Outlay Dollars) $5000 in backup licenses every 3 years. (General Fund Dollars) Cost savings over 5 years: $170,000