District Administration - September 2009 - (Page 31)

ADVERTISEMENT Free suite of online tools fosters collaboration among students, teachers Google Apps Education Edition helps Illinois district meet its technology goals, save $35,000 and transform learning M sharing information in real-time with aine Township High School other students, enabling them to work toDistrict 207, located outgether on shared projects. Teachers started side Chicago, represents five using Google Apps to distribute notes onschools and approximately 7,000 culturline and assign pre-reading activities to be ally diverse students speaking more than completed before class. 60 languages. District 207 schools reach In other areas, Google Docs improved well beyond the classroom, offering aththe way students managed information letic and fine arts programs as well as clubs such as student elections, and it let teachand activities providing opportunities for ers monitor workgroups and build curricupersonal growth and development. lum with other teachers. Google Calendar “Just a year ago, District 207 was well helped the orchestra schedule practices and behind the average school district in the concerts and share that information with area of instructional technology,” recalled parents. Google Sites allowed students to Henry Thiele, Maine Township’s director create and launch a website exploring alof technology. The schools used a slow, ternative energy sources. “Because Google text-based email system and a calendaring application that lacked much-needed fea- “Because Google Apps Apps are intuitive by nature, people just naturally start using them,” said Thiele. tures. Teachers, students, parents and board are intuitive by nature, The migration to Google Apps changed members all wanted a system that delivered how students learn and teachers instruct as more capabilities, allowed innovation and people just naturally the collaborative working and learning enoffered a better way of learning. start using them.” vironment moved outside the walls of the Thiele and his team determined that classroom. Students can access their work getting better technology into the classfrom school or home, and multiple users room meant finding a system that provided features such as HTML support, improved storage limits can collaborate on the same document, real time, even when and seamless ease of use. He was also drawn to a “cloud-based” they’re not physically together. Outside of this new focus on cooperative learning, the district solution – one that allowed secure access to hosted information was also able to reallocate an estimated $35,000 – originally budand made information easily available through any browser. His search led him to Google Apps Education Edition, a free, geted for student email – toward a new email archiving system. integrated suite of communications and collaborative tools that In addition, staff won back valuable time that was being wasted includes Gmail, Google Calendar, and a range of tools for docu- on maintaining outdated systems. “The switch to Google Apps has allowed teachers and tech ment creation and publishing – all of which are easily available staff to divert time they used to spend struggling with hardware through any browser. In addition, Google Apps for schools is ad-free and allows and software problems, and direct that time to teaching and users to have email addresses at their own district’s domain. A learning,” Thiele said. new, free product added to the suite, Google Message Security – powered by Postini – enables robust email security that allows adFor more information about Google Apps Education Edition, ministrators to limit messages based on who they are from, where please visit www.google.com/a/edu. they are going, or the content they contain. “Google Apps met all of our needs,” said Thiele. “It was the only product that made sense for us.” It took only a few days to migrate all 7,000 students to Google Apps. Success was immediate, as shared ideas and teaching methods rapidly spread across the district. For instance, students began http://www.google.com/a/edu http://www.google.com/a/edu

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of District Administration - September 2009

District Administration - September 2009
Contents
From the Editor
Letters
News Update
Health Update
Curriculum Update
Stimulus Monitor
Conversations
Administrator Profile
District Profile
Administrator Roles Shift with the Times
Turning Around Schools in Need
Global Learning
Managing Generational Diversity
New Products
Professional Opinion
How Well Does This Web Site Work?
New Books
Tech Disruptions
Online Edge

District Administration - September 2009