Gmail for lewiselementary.org domain
A few weeks back I wrote about Google offering hosted Gmail to organizations for use as their mail platform. I went ahead and signed up and last week got an email indicating that we could take part. With some help from my service provider, Clarity-Innovations, I have set up mail going to lewiselementary.org to utilize Gmail. So far I just have a few accounts set up, but after spring break I plan to offer it to any staff that would like to take advantage of it.
The control panel for administration is very easy to navigate. The interface also takes advantage of their new Google Talk feature. As with regular Gmail, their are targeted adds. Like I said before, it would be nice if instead of adds, there were links to education related resources based on the content of a mail message…
Technorati Tags: Gmail, Lewis Elementary
March 29th, 2006 02:58
I’m the technology coordinator for Wanaque Borough Schools (Passaic County, NJ) and am also interested in taking a closer look at Google’s new mail service. Unfortunately, they have not been forthright in answering my request for an “evaluation” of their service (their regular “GMail” service has been in beta for years, so I’m going to assume that this new service will likewise be in a state of perpetual unreadiness).
My original technology plan called for the establishment of a Microsoft Exchange server and the use of Outlook as our primary mail client. After looking at the requirements for this solution in terms of server hardware, initial configuration, daily monitoring for virus / security issues, Microsoft license fees, and annual software renewals for what amounted to be every kind of “anti” -ware known to man, I decided that a remotely hosted solution was more appropriate for our small school district and overworked technology coordinator (me).
I’ve selected a company called “Gaggle.net” as my district’s e-mail provider for next year. Their service looks like it has enough capabilities for our day-to-day needs and provides a very good system for filtering unwanted e-mail from faculty and students. E-Pals Schoolmail is another service that I considered, although the product’s relatively high price and lack of a central address directory caused me to look at Gaggle.net (the E-pals folks say that they’re going to correct the address directory problem over the summer).
It seems to me that remotely hosted, Web-based e-mail solutions like Google’s are getting more and more capable, and I wonder if at some point soon the per-user fees for accounts on these systems will drop to the point where it really doesn’t make sense for a district to maintain its own e-mail servers. I think that, unless your district is doing something fairly exotic, it’s already gotten there for Web hosting, and I’ve seen many other programs such as Student Information Systems and financial systems where remote hosting is presented as an option.
I’m interested tin seeing how the Google solution works, and hope that I can convince, bribe, or otherwise coerce the right person at Google to sign me up for an evaluation.
March 29th, 2006 07:10
Tim, my hosted e-mail for my high school just came available as well. We use Firefox and if you add the CustomizeGoogle extension you can remove the ads. Although, when the conversation pertains to education, the ads do as well…..
March 29th, 2006 19:02
Tim,
I just set up my school as well after seeing your original post. We’ll have to compare notes later. Sounds like you just saved PPS a few hundred bucks, no?
Joe