We love it; it's trouble-free, can be opened anywhere in the world which is
wonderful for a traveling school as we are. I have not one single complaint
about Gmail. The label, anti-spam and archiving features are the best in
the business. We are all lastnamefirstinitial@lws.edu - so we maintained
that consistency. It makes it easy to email everyone in our domain - it's
not necessary to keep address books for whacky email addresses the kids
might have.
Google Apps is free to schools which worried me. Could I get technical
support? Here's how we solved that. I would not go Google on my own - we
couldn't get anyone to respond to us in a 5 week period. So we hired a
google-certified consultant who got the whole thing done in a week. He
handles what little tech support we need and very well.
The students and teachers are sharing and collaborating on documents online;
students who didn't have a word processor on their laptops are using Google
apps (it has a mini-word processor, spreadsheet, etc.) and now traveling ski
racers can get their homework online without the teacher having to send
multiple copies to email addresses.
I highly recommend it. The *only* feature that needs some work is the
distribution or batch email lists for the domain. They don't allow you to
import a spreadsheet of names and addresses. Google needs to work on that.
Trenia Sanford
Lowell Whiteman School
On Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 7:35 AM, Keith E Gatling <keith@gatling.us> wrote:
> Hi. I've been suggesting to my students that although they each have school
> email accounts through OWA, they should get Gmail accounts because in so
> many ways they're easier to use and more reliable. An example of this was
> an
> Internet quiz during which a number of students got hosed when their
> school-supplied OWA accounts froze up on them and they lost their work. At
> least those with Gmail accounts would've had anything done within the last
> five or so minutes automatically saved.
>
> Anyway, our tech director wants to know of any schools out there that are
> using Gmail "officially" so that he can visit them. It's time for a
> "Mouseketeer Roll Call."
>
> OK, did I just date myself with that one?
> --
>
> keg
>
> ========================================
> Keith E Gatling
> Email: keith@gatling.us
> Blog: http://wordfromg.blogspot.com
> Website: http://www.gatling.us/keith
> The fact that I'm open-minded doesn't mean that I have to agree with you.
> ========================================
>
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>
--
Trenia Sanford
Technology Director
Lowell Whiteman School
970-879-1350 x22
www.lws.edu
[ For info on ISED-L see http://www.gds.org/ISED-L ]
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