Schools Going Google

Tools

By Katie Ussin

Story Published: Feb 19, 2010 at 6:45 PM MST

Story Updated: Feb 19, 2010 at 9:45 PM MST

BILLINGS - Public schools in Billings are going Google.
School District Two is upgrading its computer system and saving thousands of dollars in the process.

By the start of the 2010-2011 school year, the district plans to be using Google Enterprise for Education. It is an integrated hardware and software product that allows students and faculty to share everything from assignments to spread sheets while at school and home.

It will replace Microsoft and provide every student in the district from kindergarten to 12th grade with an e-mail account.

Karen Palmer, district technology director, said Google offers the product free to schools and will help the district save $235,000 over three years.

Any little bit helps as the district is facing a substantial budget shortfall.
"We're very excited about it and I've heard from a lot of teachers who are very excited about it," said Palmer.

The web 2.0 tools that will be available to every student and faculty member include: e-mail, calendars, shared contact lists, word processing, spread sheets, presentations, video chat and more.
It will also increase individual storage space from 100 megabytes to 7,000; all for free.

"Kids these days are so integrated with technology," said Palmer. "This now gives them an opportunity to use it for their homework and to use it to interact with their teacher and gives us the opportunity to teach them to use it appropriately."

More than 2-million schools and businesses currently use Google Enterprise. Palmer said one downside is a lack of local technical control should the system crash.

The Budgeting for Results committee still needs to approve the project.
Palmer said she expects that to happen early next month.
The Career Center is testing the product through the end of the school year.

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