[K12OSN] Google apps

[Christian Einfeldt]

hi

Paul, great to hear from you again.  I would love to speak with you about
what I am doing with the Digital Tipping Point film, and with FOSS at a
school near my home.  And it was all inspired by you, Paul !   More comments
in line...

On 9/4/07, Paul Nelson <pnelson.k12 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Hosting your own email is GREAT and is often a preferred solution but
> don't blame this on Gmail. One GOOD thing you can do with gmail is
> create a domain for your school (oregonk12.org)


I completely agree with Paul on this point.  Please see our school's Google
Partnerpage:

http://partnerpage.google.com/sfbayacademy.org

It is a great wedge tool for slowly and painlessly separating a school from
Microsoft solutions.  Google apps is the leading edge of the wedge for
FOSS.  First you start swapping in Google Docs here and there for Microsoft
Office.  Then you start swapping in Gmail with the Google Calendar program
for Outlook; and before you know it, you are down to almost no Microsoft
solutions at all.  Then the next step is global Linux.  heh.

and then allow access
> to Google apps hosted on your domain. When filtering, you can then
> deny access to all other google doc URLs but allow access to your own
> by grey listing or white listing anything with your domain in the URL
> (oregonk12.org/*).


What are you using for filtering, Paul?

This way your students learn how to use Google Docs
> and you have admin controls


That is one of the most awesome things about Google Docs and the Google
Partner gmail program -- control over your email, with a very simple user
interface that is easy for the teachers and admins to learn.

Oh, and one important thing that Paul didn't mention -- collaboration!!!
That is a hugely popular feature of gmail and Google docs with the teachers
and the students and their parents.  Anyone who is invited to a document can
collaborate.  So the students are simply required to invite teachers and
parents to every document that they create, or risk losing their on-line
privileges completely.

Last year, one teacher had his students do a slide show Google docs.  The
kids got experience standing up in front of class and presenting, and they
also planned their presos, of course, and did the formatting and photos,
etc.  It was awesome.

-- 
Christian Einfeldt,
Producer, The Digital Tipping
Point<http://archive.org/details/digitaltippingpoint>
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