Google Apps for Education is helping schools and districts offer their communities better ways of working together, with over 14 million students, faculty and staff worldwide now using Google Apps for Education and 72 of the top 100 universities in the U.S. having gone Google (according to Google). Institutions for higher education everywhere are using the cloud to improve collaboration, increase efficiency, save costs and reduce environmental impact without sacrificing privacy or security.
So what does this mean for K-12 education and why should school and districts adopt Google Apps for Education? Here are five advantages of Google Apps for K-12 Education.
1. Maintain Privacy & Security
- Because Google’s data centres don’t include unnecessary hardware or software, the number of potentially exploitable vulnerabilities is greatly reduced.
- Google Apps offers an extra layer of security with two factor authentication, which greatly reduces the risk of hackers stealing usernames and passwords.
- Browser sessions are automatically encrypted without the need for VPNs or other costly, cumbersome infrastructure. This helps protect students and teachers’ data as it travels between the browser and Google’s data centres.
- Your data belongs to you and you have full control over how data is shared and who it is shared with. Google’s data center network provides exceptional security and guarantees reliable access to your data.
2. Foster Collaboration
Additionally, tools like text and video chat and Google+ hangouts make quick, effective communication a snap.
By removing time-consuming bottlenecks, Google Apps for Education frees you up to spend more time on learning and teaching, making it an ideal environment for learning in the 21st century.
Fast, easy collaboration capabilities help bring students, teachers and teams together in real time.
3. Save Costs
To keep tools up to date, all you need to do is use an internet browser. Apps is updated every time you login, so you automatically get the newest features as soon as they’re ready. This means students, teachers and administrators always have access to the latest software, including the newest features and security updates, without incurring additional costs or hassle.
Google Apps also boasts exceptional return on investment as a result of reduced costs. A recent study by Forrester Consulting found that the ROI of switching to Google Apps is over 300 percent.
4. Encourage High Adoption
For example, a case study revealed that when the University of Notre Dame in Indiana switched to Google Apps for Education, people increased their use of email, had 20% fewer questions for the Help Desk, and indicated a 36% increase in IT satisfaction since the migration to Google Apps. This high rate of adoption was further complemented by a cost savings of over $1.5 million to the university.
20% fewer help desk questions, 36% increase in IT satisfaction and $1.5 million total cost savings
5. Go Green
- Google Apps is powered by Google’s energy-efficient data centres, making it a less energy and carbon-intensive solution than traditional on-premise servers.
- Switching to the cloud also means you can spend less on on electricity. Simply moving your email hosting from on-premise to Gmail could even help you achieve up to 80 times greater energy efficiency.
- Collaborative tools such as chat and shared documents help students and teachers reduce extraneous printing, travel costs between campuses and your overall environmental footprint.
Majority of students are already using Gmail for personal use , using them in a school setting comes as second nature to many.
Via: Sheepdog.com
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Interested in making the switch to Google Apps for Education? Contact us to learn how you can get the most out of the free Google Apps for Education suite and transform the way your stakeholders work together.
