Google Apps for Education

There was a big splash in the international media last week when Oregon became the first state in the US to announce plans to use Google Apps for Education statewide. There are approximately 400,000 students in Oregon’s education system (more than double the number in Qatar) and the estimated cost-savings by adopting Google Apps is $1.5 million per year – yes, per year!

What is Google Apps in Education? It’s a FREE bundle of ICT resources for schools that offer cloud-based communications, collaboration and security tools. Schools can set up their email system, use interactive chat features, tap-into collaboration tools and take advantage of multimedia streaming services. This means students can access their school emails through the most popular web-based email service – Gmail. It also means they can create blogs and videos, share documents, analyze data, and work with classmates even when not in the same room. These are real world skills.

Schools that have adopted Google Apps are loving the results. Greg Ferenstein of Mashable interviewed numerous Google Apps developers and users and found that the main reasons schools love it are: they save money, they boost student performance, and they prepare students for the real world. So often with ICT in education solutions, it is hard to measure the benefits, both in terms of cost and student performance. This is proving not to be the case with Google Apps. There are many schools, both k-12 and higher education, that can share concrete data in both.  Check out the Frontline Digital Nation video that highlights one such success story.

I recently attended the ICT in Education Conference in Qatar, and sadly I didn’t hear Google Apps for Education discussed once (I may have missed it). There was certainly a lot of quality discussion on how ICT could help in education, including some free online Web 2.0 tools that could be used, but too much conversation still seemed to center on the cost of technology and “quick wins,” not strategy. Google Apps in education means schools don’t need to invest large amounts in customized, closed IT tools for internal collaboration and communication. They can jump into a more open source solution, saving IT costs, and tapping into one of the biggest, most reliable brands out there. Oh, and remember, it is producing measurable results.

And let us not forget the last point – Google Apps is teaching students real world skills. The skills they are learning by using these cloud based apps – digital writing, editing, analyzing, collaboration – are all increasingly essential to today’s workforce. Adults are forced to use applications like these to excel, so why shouldn’t kids be using them in schools. And I don’t want to hear the argument that letting kids have internet access during class will stop them from focusing. So what if they check their Facebook pages? I check mine constantly throughout the workday, but I still deliver results, and kids will too. We all live in a multitasking world – accept it, and let kids live (and learn) the way they know how in the classroom as well.

I definitely believe Google Apps for Education is something all schools – and school systems – should take a look into as they are developing not only their ICT strategy, but their overall vision and plan. There is tons of potential here – and it’s free!