Lakhasly

Google for Education tools can foster collaboration and benefi t learning on campus
Rowan-Cabarrus Community College in North Carolina has undertaken an ambitious technology strategy across the institution to simplify the student experience, to increase access to technology for students regardless of socioeconomic status, and to enable access to multiple tools that students will use later in the workforce. Key to these initiatives has been implementing Google Apps for Education as part of an overall cloud strategy. In this web seminar, the CIO of Rowan-Cabarrus shared how this strategy has simplifi ed staff development, created a paperless culture and enabled new levels of student collaboration.

Devin Regis: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful. Here on the Google Apps for Education team we believe that open technology is the key to improving education. Technology can help transform education, but let’s not forget that the real change requires people.
We have over 40 million students, faculty and staff who use our Google Apps for Education platform. One in fi ve devices shipped to U.S. students this year was a Chromebook built to access the Google platform, and over 70 of the top 100 universities in the U.S. have gone Google, including seven of the eight Ivy Leagues.

Going Google in education is about four things:

1. Empowerment: being able to discover a world of infi nite resources and change the role of the teacher from simply disseminating information to coaching and supporting students as they explore the information accessible to them to solve real-world problems.


2. Choice: using the right device anytime, anywhere. We want professors and students to use the right device, whether it’s a laptop, tablet, phone or desktop, regardless of platform and manufacturer, in school, at home or on-the-go.


3. Teamwork: working together in real time. Using Google’s collaborative productivity suite is often cited by educators as the most profound change in the way they teach and the way students learn. Collaboration fosters teamwork, problem-solving and organization—key skills for the modern world.


4. Scale: being affordable and easy to manage. Device and content management are equally important to keep the total cost of ownership low and to allow IT teams to effi ciently and effectively manage all the different elements, from network to applications to devices.

We offer schools a free suite of services called Google Apps for Education. These apps include Gmail as your email service provider and things like Google Docs, Spreadsheets and Presentations for content creation. We recently announced the new Drive for Education within Google Apps for Education, along with Vault for Education included at no cost. Unlimited storage rolled out at the end of October—all the storage you could ever need, at no cost.

There are no advertisements in Google Apps for Education services—your data is not being scanned for ads, and we have no plans to change this in the future. Additionally, in K12 schools using Google Apps for Education, users do not see ads when they use Google search.

The admin console is easy to set up and manage, with personalization of devices and touchless deployment. You organize and manage your device settings, and also set up policies for your domain, all from one webpage. So what does it mean for schools to use Google tools? We asked and people told us it’s about more than technology. It’s about adopting a culture that extends beyond the classroom walls, sparks the curiosity of professors and students and fosters collaboration.