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Posted by Julia Stiglitz, Google Apps for Education Team

Today, we’re thrilled to announce that the Utah State Board of Education has decided to begin offering support for Google Apps for Education to K-12 schools and districts across the state. The decision has the full support of the Utah Technology Coordinators Council (TCC), a group of IT professionals from Utah’s 42 school districts and other organizations that regularly advises the State Office of Education and Utah public schools on technology issues.

“The Utah State Board of Education and I are pleased to have worked out terms with Google to allow our Utah students and teachers to take advantage of Google Apps for Education,” said State Superintendent of Public Instruction Larry K. Shumway. “Google Apps for Education will allow greater collaboration between students, teachers, parents and schools to advance academic achievement.” Under the agreement, over 575,000 students and 25,000 teachers statewide will have access to Google Apps.

To support educators transitioning to Google Apps, the Utah Education Network will provide professional development to any school across the state that would like to receive training on Google Apps. In addition, the Southwest Educational Development Center and Washington County School District have offered to provide technical support to schools.

Charlie Roberts, the Technology & Media Director for 27,000 students at Washington County School District, estimates that his school district has saved more than $100,000 from switching to Google Apps. Beyond cost savings, teachers across the district are also using Google Apps to interact with students and parents in new way -- relying on Google Calendar to schedule parent teacher conferences, creating Google Forms for student elections, and setting up class websites using Google Sites.

Roberts has also added a few labs of Chromebooks. "It is a very exciting prospect because we anticipate little or no increase in overall support even though we will be adding hundreds of devices,” he said. “As students move to the Chromebooks, use of other hardware and client based software will be reduced or eliminated entirely, which will cause a reduction of the necessary support."

Utah joins eight other states with statewide support for Google Apps for Education: Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin. In addition to Washington County, many other districts within Utah are already using Google Apps, including Alpine, Nebo and Davis school districts.

To learn more about the agreement, join representatives from Google and the Utah State Board of Education for a webinar on Monday, January 9, at 10:00am PT/11:00am MT.
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Posted by Ben Fohner, Product Marketing Manager, Chromebooks for Business and Education

Curious how the new Chromebook can help your school bring the power of the web to students and teachers? Join the Chromebooks for Education team tomorrow, Tuesday, July 19th or Wednesday, August 3rd at 11:00AM PT/2PM ET for an introduction to Chromebooks for Education live webinar.

Announced in May at Google I/O, Chromebooks for Education are now available directly from Google. Chromebooks are computers built and optimized for the web and give students, teachers, and administrators a simple solution for fast, intuitive, and easy-to-manage computing. The Education offering from Google also includes a web-based management console and three years of service and support from Google, so schools can get computers into the hands of their students and teachers at a much lower total cost of ownership than a traditional PC.

Teachers and students are already finding Chromebooks easy to use, and are using them as part of lessons ranging from feudal Japan to algebra. In Oregon, Zach Fleming has been using Chromebooks to teach 6th grade social studies at Crook County Middle School. "From the day the students got the Chromebooks, they were able get right to the lesson without much help. It’s pretty simple" he says, "individual learning at their own pace."

Matthew Peskay, the Director of Technology at KIPP LA Schools where Chromebooks have been a part of the classes for four months, is impressed that "there is no software to install and there is no application imaging that needs to be done,” meaning he can put “more computers out in the classroom, and easily sustain and maintain them over time.”



During the webinar, we will discuss Chromebook management capabilities, specific solutions for schools, and Google’s subscription pricing. You will also be able to hear from a teacher who has been using Chromebooks in their classroom and ask questions of Google’s Education Evangelist, Jaime Casap, who has been working with teachers and educators around Google Apps for five years.

Join us to learn how you can get Chromebooks in time for the start of the next school year. We hope to see you there!

What: Introduction to Chromebooks for Education
Who:
  • James Sanders, 7th grade history teacher, KIPP LA Schools
  • Jaime Casap, Education Evangelist, Google
  • Jeff Keltner, Chromebooks for Education, Google

When: 
  • Tuesday, July 19th, 2011 11:00AM PT/2:00PM ET - Register
  • Wednesday, August 3rd, 2011 11:00AM PT /2:00PM ET - Register
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Posted by Julia Stiglitz, Google Apps for Education Team

When it comes to education, Wisconsinites have always been on the cutting edge. The very first kindergarten in the US was founded more than 150 years ago in the town of Watertown, WI. In higher education, the University of Wisconsin-Madison awarded the first Ph.D. in chemical engineering ever granted in 1905. Continuing the trend of advancing education in the state, K-12 schools in Wisconsin are going Google.

Thanks to a collaboration between the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction and the 12 Cooperative Educational Services Agencies (CESAs), over 850,000 students and 55,000 teachers across Wisconsin will have access to Google Apps for Education, professional development and technical deployment support.

"It’s fantastic to have such support for public education from Google, an outstanding leader in the business and information systems world," says Wisconsin State Superintendent Tony Evers. "I’m glad we were able to dedicate resources to help schools take advantage of this opportunity. Schools need to save time and money, and students need to learn collaboration and technology skills so they will graduate ready for higher education and the workforce. "

One of the reasons Wisconsin decided to bring Google Apps to the state was the overwhelming support from individual school districts. In fact, 81% of educators polled in an exploratory survey were already using or strongly considering Google Apps for Education. Many school districts who had gone Google offered to share their experiences to help the state make an informed decision.

Jon Tanner, Technology Director of Oregon School District in southern Wisconsin, moved to Google Apps in 2007 and found that "by choosing Google Apps, the Oregon School District has saved tens of thousands of dollars, improved the reliability of our email systems, enabled easier collaboration for staff and students, and provided students with experience on the kinds of web-based, collaborative software that they will use in the workplace."

40 miles south, teachers in the Janesville School District have been using Google Apps for the past 2 years to create paperless classrooms. Franklin Middle School uses Google Sites to distribute the school's newspaper. Third grade teacher Nicole Andresen has gone paperless by relying on Gmail and Google Docs to distribute assignments. "I can create comprehension questions, surveys and other assignments for my students to answer from their email using Google Forms," she said, "and it's so much easier for me to grade since I don't need to remember to bring worksheets home."

Kathy Boguszewski, Library Media & Instructional Technology Coordinator in Janesville, is excited for other Wisconsin schools to join the 12 million students and teachers that have gone Google worldwide. "Google Apps is changing how we work and teach," she said, "and we are loving it!"
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Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team

As school lets out and summer vacation begins, the Google Apps for Education team has been reflecting on what we've learned from our users over the past school year. We wanted to share some of the great stories we've heard from students and teachers in Colorado, Canada, Brown University, and Iowa.

Littleton Public Schools (LPS) in Colorado decided to "go Google" in the fall of 2010 and students are giving Google Apps high marks for working on collaborative projects. High school sophomore Kylie shares, "we no longer have to exchange contact information because everyone already has a Google account and it is saved in our contacts. We are also easily able to create either a Google doc or group for the project, and can invite the teacher as well to look at our work." Other LPS students Rachel and Bekah find that editing together in Google Docs "improved our writing by sharing with others and making comments at the same time" and working with documents stored online made it "easier to be organized and bring home assignments." And 5th grade student Jonathan likes Google Apps for the practical reason that "you don’t have to worry about paper getting lost and having your things get torn or ripped."

Before and after the faculty and staff at Littleton Public Schools have "gone Google."

Teachers from Edmonton Public Schools in Alberta, Canada are finding that Google Apps is increasing students’ engagement and saving teachers time. One teacher notes that "students love having the option to complete assignments online and homework completion has improved drastically." Another educator observes "moving to a web-based platform has made distributing, sharing, and collecting material seamless. It has significantly decreased my workload and planning, as I do not need to create several different versions of things."

Brown University’s undergraduates moved to Google Apps in the summer of 2009; the rest of the campus migrated the following year. This May, Brown asked the entire campus community -- faculty, staff and students -- to evaluate their satisfaction with and use of Google Apps. The results are overwhelmingly positive: nine out of ten members of the Brown community said they were “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with Gmail, and overall satisfaction has actually increased since the initial deployment. The detailed survey results are available at www.brown.edu/cis/GoogleApps/survey.



At Clear Creek Amana Middle School in Iowa, the benefits of Google Apps extend beyond organized lessons. The "Creek Squad," a tech support team made up entirely of student volunteers, helps teachers and administrators get the most out of the technology at their fingertips. With Google Apps, it seems, the students really have become the teachers!



While school may be out for students and teachers, we're excited to spend the summer coding away to make sure that when classes start again in the fall, Google Apps is better than ever.
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Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team

One of the best parts of working on the Google Apps for Education team is talking with teachers and hearing the incredible ways they are using Google Apps to enhance classroom learning. Kern Kelley and Rob Dominick, teachers based in Newport, Maine, use laptop cameras and Google forms to grade math quizzes. Aida Awad, a science teacher in Park Ridge, Illinois, instructs students to use a motion chart to plot and contrast plant growth in different environments. In the UK, Ian Addison's elementary school students create impressive websites about their hometown.

With millions of students and teachers moving to Google Apps, we want to make it easier for teachers around the world to connect and share these kinds of examples with each other.

Today we're excited to announce eight Google Apps Regional K-12 User Groups across the United States and Canada. These groups are designed for educators to learn and collaborate through community discussion forums, shared resources, events and webinars. In addition to showcasing creative instructional uses for Google Apps, we hope these groups will help teachers and administrators to identify other schools in their region that have "gone Google."

If you live in the United States or Canada, check out the list below to find and join your Google Apps Regional K-12 User Group (International user groups are coming soon, stay tuned...)

States:
Regions:
  • East (US and Canada): k12east.appsusersgroup.com
    Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont, West Virginia, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island
  • Great Lakes (US and Canada): k12greatlakes.appsusersgroup.com
    Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Ontario
  • South (US): k12south.appsusersgroup.com
    Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia
  • Central (US and Canada): k12central.appsusersgroup.com
    Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Wisconsin, Manitoba, Nunavet, and Saskatchewan
  • West (US and Canada): k12west.appsusersgroup.com
    Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, and the Northwest Territories
We can't wait to hear more great stories and discussions about Google Apps!
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Nearly one year after Oregon blazed the trail as the first state to bring Google Apps to students and teachers, Rhode Island (the Ocean State) and Missouri (the Show Me State) will begin offering support for Google Apps to K-12 schools and districts across their respective states. Together, they will provide over a million students and over 100,000 teachers with the ability to move to the cloud with Google Apps.

The RISTE organization will help Rhode Island schools who decide to "go Google" with both technical deployment assistance and training opportunities. Paul Barrette, executive board member of RISTE and Director of Technology at the Burrillville School Department, has already moved his district to Google Apps and is excited to offer this service to the other 32 districts in Rhode Island. "Google Apps also integrates very well with a wide variety of handheld and portable devices," Barrette adds, "making it a perfect fit with the ways that teachers and students are now accessing technology."

In Missouri, the Missouri Research and Education Network (MOREnet) – a consortium of schools, public libraries and higher education institutions – will assist K-12 member schools in the adoption and configuration of Google Apps by providing training to administrators, faculty, and staff. MOREnet hopes to help members faced with budget constraints move to Google Apps to reduce IT costs while also improving technology integration in the classroom. As John Gillispie, MOREnet Executive Director explains: “It’s more than just a fiscal decision. Google Apps provides communication and collaboration tools that enhance learning across the curriculum not only in reading and writing, but also in areas like math and science.”

We're excited to welcome Rhode Island and Missouri to the growing Google Apps family, which also includes Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New York and Oregon.

Posted by Jaime Casap, Google Apps Education Manager
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We talk a lot about “going Google”, and with more schools and universities – like Ann Arbor Public Schools, Bryant University, Bucknell University, Henry Ford Community College, NYU, Oklahoma State University, and Southern Oregon University – migrating to Google Apps for Education every day, we want to help make it as easy (and fun) as possible to make the move.

Whether you are just thinking about launching Apps, or you’re toasting to your first graduating class after four years in the cloud – it’s always a good idea to educate your users about the new ways they can teach and learn with Google Apps. With that in mind, we’ve created the new Guide to Going Google which provides tools and resources that help students, faculty, staff and alumni make the most of your transition. The guide outlines six steps to successfully going Google: technical deployment, outreach, training, getting the word out, going live, and staying up to date. We designed this guide to be helpful for everyone from a 4th grade teacher in a classroom that’s just learning about Google Apps, to a university CIO that’s been using Apps for years.


Of course, if you’re still evaluating hosted collaboration tools for your school, and want to understand why so many schools have already gone Google, take a minute to hear what CIOs at Kent State, Brandeis, North Carolina State and U.C. Riverside are saying about making the move to Apps:





P.S. For those schools who have already gone Google, we'd love to hear and see your creative approaches to making the transition successful. Maybe you brought your mascot the a faculty training like they did at Brown University; or had a special group of on-the-ground trainers like the Creek Squad. Maybe you did something bold like NC State who created a graffiti wall to mark the occasion of your launch. Let us know how you’ve gone Google, so we can help other schools can get inspired, too.

Posted by Dana Nguyen and Miriam Schneider, Apps for Education team
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The education technology space has seen an explosion of new offerings in the past few years. What has been missing is a centralized platform for schools and universities to easily evaluate and utilize web apps. Today we are excited to launch an education category in the Google Apps Marketplace designed specifically to help schools and universities easily discover and deploy new web applications that integrate with their existing Google Apps accounts.

The new education category includes over 20 applications from 19 vendors ranging from learning management systems (LMS) to student tools and teaching aids – all of which integrate with Google Apps for Education. Each app can be accessed through single sign-on and the Google universal navigation bar and many offer deeper integrations that synchronize with Google Calendar and Documents.

This new education category will make it easier for schools to have more web apps at their fingertips, including popular existing apps such as Aviary, Grockit, and LearnBoost as well as the new apps launching today.



Learning Management
Now faculty can bring their classroom management to the cloud with apps such as:


Learning Aids
Teachers can help student learn more effectively with web-based learning aids like:

  • BrainPOP: an app that offers animated, curriculum-based content that enhances student learning in numerous ways, from illustrating complex concepts to reviewing before a test.
  • DreamBox: a tool that helps students learn math through interactive lessons and gives teachers reporting dashboards to monitor individual student progress.
  • And other teaching aids like Grockit, BuzzMath and LearnThatWord.

Student and Admin Tools
Administrators and students can tackle other education needs with even more tools:


Thousands of universities, colleges and K-12 schools around the world with over 10 million users already deploy Google Apps in their classrooms. The applications we're introducing today into the new Marketplace education category are just the beginning. We look forward to expanding and strengthening our offerings as we continue to add new education tools, including web applications by Blackboard, Knewton and the Khan Academy already on the way.

To learn more about the education category of the Apps Marketplace – and hear directly from the developers of these applications – register to attend live Google webinars and Q&A on Wednesday, February 2nd.

Manage your school in the cloud with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring classroom management tools Haiku and LearnBoost
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Help students learn more effectively with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring web-based learning tools Grockit, BrainPOP, and DreamBox
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
4:00 p.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Posted by Dennis Troper, Director of Product Management, Google Apps Marketplace
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In November, we kicked off a series of biweekly webinars aimed at helping educators learn ways to use Google Apps in the classroom. These sessions, taught by Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, have received a great response and we've decided to hold them more frequently – you can now tune in every Tuesday at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET to hear tips and techniques for using Google Apps for Education.

Register to attend one of the upcoming webinars in the series today and on the following Tuesdays:
Archived recordings from past Google Apps for Education webinars can also be found in our resource center.

Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team
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While most organizations using Google Apps provide unrestricted email access to their users, some schools and businesses need to maintain a safer and more secure environment by allowing certain users to only send and receive email within the organization. This "walled garden" approach has been a popular feature request for K-12 schools looking to provide additional safeguards for student email. It can also help businesses where the email access of particular contractors and other groups should be limited.

Today, Google Apps administrators can create policies specifying who their users can communicate with over email, and administrators can tailor these policies for different groups of users. For example, school faculty and staff can have unrestricted email access while students have the freedom to send and receive emails within the school community but are protected from unwanted email interactions with outsiders.

"Using these new controls finally gives us the ability to provide email to our 40,000 high school students. We are confident that this will help protect our children from inappropriate communications and excited about new class activities and collaboration that email will bring. Not all kids are comfortable speaking up in class and this gives many of them another avenue to approach their teachers," said Laurie Tranmer, Email Services Manager at Prince George's County Public Schools.

This feature will be rolling out over the next couple of days to Google Apps for Business, Education and Government customers. Administrators can configure their policies in the “Advanced Tools” section of the control panel.

Posted by Adam Dawes, Google Apps Product Manager
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As more and more states and school districts are going Google, we're hearing great ideas for integrating Google Apps into the classroom. To help educators make the most of Google Apps, we're starting a biweekly webinar series focused on Google Apps for Education professional development.

Webinars will be led by Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers and held biweekly on Tuesdays, 4:30PM PT.

We kicked off the series on November 9 with an overview of Google Sites. The next webinar in the series will be tomorrow, November 23, at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET on the topic of Student Newspapers and Google Apps - register today.

Future webinars in this series include:
Dec 7 - Taking the core features of Google Apps to the next level
Dec 21 - The Collaborative STEM classroom
Jan 4 - Becoming a Gmail Ninja

Recordings from past Google Apps webinars can also be found in our resource center.

To get a glimpse of how a teacher might use Google Apps in the classroom today, you can also view our new K-12 demo:



Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education Team
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(Cross-posted from the Official Google Blog)

When I graduated from high school in New York, the Internet didn’t exist. Teachers were preparing me and my peers for traditional service or manufacturing careers - jobs that didn’t require advanced technical knowledge. Today’s students are facing a completely different landscape; they’re expected to enter the workplace fully literate in technology, with strong communication and collaboration skills that will allow them to succeed in a connected and global environment.

New York state is making changes to prepare students for this future, implementing a host of initiatives designed to incorporate the development of 21st century skills into the state’s core learning objectives. As a product of the New York state public education system, I couldn’t be more excited to announce one of these endeavors—a new K-12 initiative that will bring powerful communication and collaboration tools to the more than 3.1 million students and hundreds of thousands of teachers throughout New York state.

Today, New York Institute of Technology (NYIT), in partnership with the New York State Teacher Centers and associated Boards of Cooperative Educational Services (BOCES), the New York State teacher unions and New York State professional organizations, will offer Google Apps access, training and support to 697 public school districts, as well as all non-public and charter schools, across New York. We’re excited that NYIT is committed to providing schools the deployment and professional development resources they need to make Google Apps for Education—including Gmail, Docs, Sites and Calendar—a powerful tool for teachers and students across the state.



New York follows Oregon, Iowa, Colorado and Maryland as the fifth and largest state to bring Google Apps access to K-12 classrooms and will join more than 8 million students and teachers that use Google Apps today.

I no longer live in New York, but all of my family is spread out across the great Empire state and I look forward to bringing Google Apps to their local school districts!

Posted by Jaime Casap, Google Apps Education Manager
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Today we’re happy to announce that The Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium (MEEC) will make Google Apps for Education available to 1.4 million students in the state. MEEC is comprised of the University System of Maryland, Maryland Higher Education Commission and Maryland Department of Education, and provides software resources and services to its 194 members across the state. This includes all 24 public K-12 districts, libraries and all public and private higher education institutions.

Maryland joins the ranks of Oregon, Colorado and Iowa, who each enabled their educational institutions to “go Google” under one statewide agreement. And more than 8 million other students, staff and faculty across the globe actively use our free messaging and collaboration suite.

In addition to Google Apps, this agreement also enables MEEC member institutions—for example University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)—to license Google Postini Services such as Google Message Security, for use with the existing email infrastructure to enhance Spam filtering and email security for students, faculty and staff.

According to Assistant Vice President of IT at UMBC, Mike Carlin, students were overwhelmingly in favor of Google and vocal about their preference when it came to email since it “works exceptionally well with their mobile lifestyle.”

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Apps for Education Team
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Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome John Calvert, Technology Learning Facilitator and Google Certified Teacher from Clarkstown Central School District, as our guest blogger today. Calvert's post describes how his district has created a collaborative curriculum portal for teachers using Google Apps Education Edition. You can also read or download a case study about Clarkstown Central School District's full Google Apps deployment.

As in most districts, the Clarkstown Central School District curriculum is a living document. We tweak our maps each year, based on student and teacher experience, but communicating these changes to our 800 teachers has always been a logistical nightmare. Even though we have a web based mapping system, our faculty often worked from old copies printed in binders. For most teachers this was the easiest way to work and there wasn't a compelling value add from the old mapping system to change their practice. Google Apps has added this incentive by helping us create a space that is collaborative, purposeful, and always current. The result is a change that has connected our teachers to the map and each other.

Clarkstown Central School District is a central district pulling students from several communities located 20 miles north of New York City. We have 14 schools, ranging from kindergarten to twelfth grade, employ roughly 1700 people, and educate nearly 10,000 students. The district has made a recent commitment to prepare our students for the technology rich future they will inherit. We decided that Google Apps would be a key tool to leverage this goal. We wanted to extend past the tech savvy and tech willing teachers, to the users who would not be your typical technology teachers. We needed buy-in from teachers and administrators to make sure a roll out of this scale would be successful.

With this in mind, we decided to use something of real value to our community - in our case, a curriculum resource portal that was created with Google – as the first step in transitioning toward a new technology platform.

We introduced Google Calendar first because it was easiest for the majority of users to understand. The big desk planners teachers are familiar with do not facilitate collaboration with colleagues and can only be used when you're literally standing in front of them. Google Calendar solved these common teacher problems.

We also created centrally controlled calendars that teachers could add to their own, making life easier. Then, we created curriculum scope and sequence calendars. This let, say, a 5th grade teacher turn on the curriculum calendars and plan lessons for the month based on where they should be in the curriculum. Clicking on a curriculum event provides and overview of the content and a link to the resource site page for that unit.

Each curriculum area for each grade level has a resource site organized by unit. The unit pages are linked to the appropriate calendar events in Google Calendar. These pages display the curriculum which is fed directly from the mapping software. The pages also organize links, documents, and other resources. Some documents are shared across multiple grades and units from Docs. When the original is changed, each linked unit updates automatically. Other sites are created to support professional development in the district.

Most importantly, teachers are now creating unit plans and other resources collaboratively using Apps; these contributions are also shared in the resource sites.

So far, the project has been a resounding success. We started with the elementary curriculum and will be expanding the project to the secondary grades this year. The initiative has "won over" our administrators and teachers. Our faculty is more connected to the curriculum than they have ever been. The work we have done has inspired many of our teachers to bring Google Apps into their teaching. In response to this enthusiasm, we are introducing our Student Apps portal this Fall.

If you'd like to hear more about how K-12 school districts like Clarkstown Central are using Google Apps to save IT resources and encourage district-wide collaboration, please join us at this upcoming webinar:

Google Apps Education Edition at Maine Township High School District
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
11:00 a.m. PDT (GMT -07:00, San Francisco)

Have questions for the Maine Township and Google Apps teams? Submit them here.

Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education Edition team

Learn more about what's possible for your school with Google Apps Education Edition.
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Listening to Google Apps admins talk – with us and with each other – made it clear: as IT professionals, admins wanted a way to connect online somewhere in the Google environment. We heard a clear call for a gathering place, or community – a meeting point where admins could meet one another, identify each other by business type or geography, discuss topics unique to their roles, and share learning and best practices in a way that helped in their professional roles.
We wanted to make the site relevant and easy for admins to use, and we also wanted to use Google Apps as fully as we could. So we used Google Sites, of course, and integrated the Google products that most admins already use, like Google Maps, Moderator, and Forms. A few highlights:
  • The Admin community map – allows admins to easily see where their fellow community members are located; also highlights further information with a "click" on the marker.


  • "Share your perspective " – uses Google Moderator to let admins easily add their own comments to posted topics, or vote on comments added by others. We've set this up to feature four topics at a time, so there's always something to talk about.
  • "Stay Current " – the latest product information and posts to the Admin Help forum, so that Admins can see what's being discussed in Support
We want this forum to create a sense of connectedness and community among the people who work as admins for Google Apps – a place where they can learn from each other, share what they've learned, and create a dialog that can help all of us learn. We also want it to be a place where people considering Google Apps can come in and find out more about what it offers, so we made this an "open" environment, where people can easily invite colleagues who might want to know more. There's even a way to send an email right from the forum itself.

The Google Apps team hopes that this community adds value for admins, and we hope you'll take a look today.

Posted by Monali Narayanaswami, Google Apps team

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