To Apps or Not To Apps…

Jen Hegna from Byron School District (MN) gave a great overview at the SW/WC Tech Conference today of what Google Apps can provide to students and schools–you can view her presentation here.  Implementing in January 2010, they started with staff first and will roll out to students in May.  Some reasons they moved to Apps were:

• Server problems–$$$! And too much time supporting persistent issues, need for offsite backup, etc.
• Centralized control and administration of content–can determine access levels by groups
• Security–uses TLS/SSL (works with newer mobiles), spam and virus protection, data storage redundancy
• Infrastructure–supports open industry standards, 99,9% uptime, great tech support 24/7
• Focus on innovation–constantly developing new tools accessible from any computer, including mobiles
• Enhanced productivity!  Shared calendar for substitutes, computer labs, meetings, etc.  Forms can provide a helpdesk ticketing system, and Talk will email a transcript of your chat convo to you.
• Increase morale!

Other considerations:  They did need to increase their bandwidth to support this.  Apps open by domain–so will there be a separate domain for students and teachers?  If you decide to Google App, do your homework–assemble your team–develop a timeline–get training and support.