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Google’s AWESOME offer to K12 Schools

Act Now – Deploy later. Google’s offer ends July 2010

Google has been helping K12 Schools and Colleges save money by giving free access to their powerful tools in an enterprise setting.  Google began offering Gmail and have continued to add more tools to their suite specifically tuned for schools.  Known as Google Apps for Education (GAE) this collection provides an excellent solution for schools just as most technology budgets are shrinking…or should I say…being slashed to the bone.

Google Apps for Education

To no surprise Gmail has been a hit with schools.  In 2006 Arizona State University was one of the first colleges to migrate to Gmail.  They moved 65,000 student email accounts saving over $400,000 in ANNUAL related email costs.  Since then more higher education institutions including Northwestern University (case study) and Notre Dame (moved 15,000 students and 150,000 alumni and saved $1.5 Million) have migrated to Gmail.

For Students, Faculty and Administrative staff, GAE has grown to include 7GB of individual email storage, integration with GoogleCalendar, GoogleDocs (word processing, spreadsheets and presentations) and GoogleSites (websites and wikis) for web publishing.  Google has even added 10GB of storage to their Google Video offering.  These tools provide a tremendous savings for schools who can retire in-house or expensive outsourced systems.

From Good To Great:
A necessary email-related tool schools need is anti-spam and anti-virus protection.  And Google has recently responded with an AWESOME offer for K12 Schools that’s too good to pass up:

Until July 2010 K12 Districts can migrate to Google Apps for Education AND receive FREE anti-spam/anti virus-protection via Postini

Postini is a popular (Google owned) industrial strength anti-spam & anti-virus solution.  And Google is even offering deep discounts on email archiving, malware protection and web filtering for K12 Districts as part of Postini.

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Latest read: America Alone

America Alone

Mark Steyn has written a clever book America Alone: The End of the World As We Know It. In a post 9/11 world America, according to Steyn must “go it alone” against the impact Muslims have in today’s world.  A lot of his knowledge is coming from outside the mainstream of US media organizations and many will be surprised to learn the real state of affairs between a fading Anglo-America and a rising Muslim world.

America AloneSteyn begins simply with demography as the basis for his argument that Islam will outgrow the Anglo-American world.  The American birth rate is 2.4 while Muslim countries like Pakistan have a birth rate of 4.5 and given time some countries like England and Spain which have rates under 1.5 will simply fall off the earth in the next century.

He points out that eastern European countries like Russia have abortion rates as high as 70%, and acknowledges that countries are killing themselves in the long run while Muslims are set to flourish for the next two to three generations.

At the same time the medium age in some parts of the Muslim world is just 15.  Steyn argues that this very young minority will grow to see democratic countries and institutions will shift to the law and culture of Islam.

Is the Muslim world gaining political strength in a post 9/11 world?  Steyn writes about how the growth of Muslim populations in Europe still lead to isolation, not assimilation in their Anglo-countries and slowly over time how Governments have begun to accommodate their growing communities.  Want proof?

lockerbee
The recent release of Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi the Lockerbie bomber made headlines around the world. Freed from jail by Scotland al Megrahi returned home to Libya a hero.  Was it all for cheap oil?  The US Government condemned this release.  But who is holding power here?

Tags: America Alone, Mark Steyn, education, Muslim, Demography, culture, trends

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Latest read: Groundswell

Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.  This book is a great primer for social media.  If your new to social media this book is for you.
GroundswellHowever if you have been working with blogs and wikis for more than five years this book is a bit too elementary but a great quick read nevertheless.

The Groundswell is the powerful movement of our networked society. Basically the book breaks the “groundswell” into gaining insights from what social networks say about your company, your products and the people representing your company.

We have reached a point on the modern internet that personal voices will grow via social media tools never before available. This will help to drive new marketing plans, business reach to both existing and new customers. This can drive new media to tell stories about products and community movements.

Blogs help talk to your communities, and buzz helps energize the groundswell and the new ability to utilize “customers” as collaborative team members. In the end its Groundswell is about person to person relationships.

Groundswell’s blog

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How Al Gore started the internet

Marc Andreessen notes how funding led by then Senator Al Gore helped NCSA drive the development of the web.

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Latest read: The Age of Turbulance

I finished Alan Greenspan‘s book The Age of Turbulence Adventures in a New World and learned it was more than I expected from the former Chairman of The Federal Reserve.  And with the recession still in high gear it was also good timing.
The Age of TurbulanceBeyond his sheer volume of knowledge regarding the economy, global markets and international finance I was most impressed with Greenspan’s simple yet immense observation: America needs an overhauled K12 educational system for our country to have a strong economy in 2030.

The impact of Technology, Globalization & Innovation as he outlines should not be overlooked regarding educational reform.  I must admit the real interest for most readers would be to jump the chapter that addresses the recession.  Its worth taking the time to read the book in full.

Greenspan’s impact in Washington, the economy and Republican politics spans Presidential administrations from Nixon to W. Bush.  Greenspan has enjoyed a pretty interesting life.  I was most struck not by his interest in music but rather his high school music partner Stan Getz.  His comments about his role in Y2K for the government and financial markets and the impact of fiber optic networks were welcoming for any geek or fanboy.

There is just a huge amount of economic learning you can pickup from his 25 chapters.  My favorite chapters surprisingly fall in a row:

19. Globalization and Regulation
20. The “Conundrum”
21. Education and Income Inequality
22. The world retires. But can it afford to?

There are some amazing things you can learn from an economist.  His view of W. Bush’s administration and their loss of focus on the economy was eye opening.  Bush never changed any economic plans beyond what he promised during his election campaign.  W. Bush repeatedly ignored The Fed’s view of the sliding economy and needed changes over the close of his Presidency and handed his successor an economy with financial, housing and automotive markets in crisis.

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