Google for Education framework / Tablets and Laptops for education
 

Hi there,

Has anyone got any experience using Google for Education at school, college, uni etc. (As a student or teacher)? Is it any good? HOw does it facilitate learning/sharing info? I'm not quite clear reading the official info what it actually cosists in? Are Apps for Education part of it or is it a separate thing? Can apps for education be installed on any android tablet with a recent version of the system?

On a separate note there are some tablets recommended on the Google for Education website, we're probably going to go for one of them. I also need to buy some laptops for our college (for learners) - which ones would you recommend? I don't think the budget is that tight but obviously I wouldn't go for the most expensive ones.
I have no experience of Chromebooks - are they any good (for learners) - I guess I'd rather have more traditional laptops where they can use MS Office as well, etc. Yes, my organisation is rather MS oriented. My role is not really IT-related. I'm a teacher. We have been using a third-party company for servicing our computers (company with no *-nix expertise unfortunately). I'm just involved in promoting/spreading use of technology in our college among other teachers/learners.

Anyone has any other tips on some good solutions?

Thank you in advance.

Ignoring the the whole privacy/google debate, Chromebooks are brilliant.
*They're cheap and fast (150 Euro for an acer c720).
*Insanely easy to use (no setup needed at all).
*Everything is doable using web apps, MS Office is available as well
*Android apps are currently being integrated (no need for expensive tablets in education).
*You only really need an ssh-client (or VPN and friends) for "collective education" and development, chromebooks are perfect for this.

Erk - how is this acceptabe ?. Especially for open source supporters ?.

Seems schools have no qualms about tracking everything students do or use - to the extent of secretly turning on camera/microphone, even in non-school hours. And google - who trusts them ???.
phewww ...

Well ... I'm currently working on a debian/chromeos version that's using owncloud for all back-end and syncing (I'll post some links when/if ready) ;)
PS: Tablets are even more restricted and there's really no point in using google-services without using anything google.

Good luck with that.
As for tablets, I managed to get Cyanogenmod and gapps working fine on a (very) old Asus TF101 transformer (JB, not KK). Privacy guard allows me to choose who gets access to what - was googles "Apps ops" they apparently accidently released then quickly withdrew.

Thanks guys.
In this particular case I'm not really worried about privacy. The laptops/tablets will not be integrated with our company intranet. Just the college's generic wifi connection. It'll have just for learners work. Learners will rent the tablets/laptops to be used at home/during the lesson, etc.

...so noone has get any experience with google for education...?

Partly...
I do the IT stuff for some local schools (voluntary).

They didn't like the more expensive non-keyboard options (tablets/android).
Not everything (mostly some admin tools) is available for chrome (this will change rather soon, ChromOS's android runtime is already available in the "testing" branch).
Most of its applications are the ones you're already familiar with (docs and friend).
Further more, you'll find many extras outside google (especially for software-development).

I'm a student at a school that uses Google Apps for Education. This year, every student bought a Chromebook (Acer c720p) through the school. So far, I like it. We use Google Docs for a lot of our notes, and so far we haven't had any major problems. I helped our system admin over the summer, so I have a general idea of what went on...

Once the Chromebook is enrolled in the school's domain, you can restrict a lot of what students do. And once the Chromebook gets enrolled, the only way to de-enroll it is to use the "Powerwash" or go into Developer Mode. So the school policy makes that a major violation, and let the principals deal with that. :) In our school, the admin only allows *@schoolname.org e-mail accounts to log in to the Chromebooks. Our school currently blocks all apps/extensions except those on the admin's whitelist. I don't know if you can ban certian websites (we do it through the school's firewall) but you can prevent them from erasing their history and using incognito mode. And since everything is linked to their email account, if a student breaks their Chromebook, they can borrow one of our "loaner" Chromebooks until it's fixed and they still have access to all of their docs.

If you have any questions about how it looks from a student's perspective, I would be happy to answer them. I also know a little about the admin side, but I only saw a small part of it while I worked there over the summer.

Thank you both. I'm playing with it right now. I'm sure I'll have some questions very soon.

Good luck!