Panther Valley School District

There is some exciting news for Faculty and Students this year.  The District will be implementing Google Apps for  Education!

So what does that mean for you as a staff member?

Well the biggest change will be that your email client will switch from CLIU Outlook to Google's Gmail.  Your email address will stay the same, but now you will be logging into Gmail using your email address and password to access your work mail.  There are a ton of benefits to this change though. Here are a few!

• Unlimited Storage Space!  No more pruning out your old emails to consolidate on space.   No more wasting time wondering what should go and what should stay.


• Accessible Anywhere!  Easily add your email to your personal phone, tablet, and home pc.  And because it's cloud based you're assured a 99.99% up time even when natural disasters such as hurricanes.


• Apps Integration!  Your email will now work with a network of other Google products. Google Classroom, Google Drive, Google Calendar, YouTube, Hangouts, etc.  All of which will help making collaborating, organizing, communicating, and getting involved all the more easy.


• Tons of support options!  You'll no longer be limited to internal support. With Gmail there is a wealth of support features, YouTube videos, and resources at your command, but to top it off we'll be creating our own community of support options to help you make the most of what you have.


• Gmail Features! Including their labeling system, themes, searchability, filters, and more.


• Reach out! To students, and faculty alike.  We're adding student accounts.  You'll be able to securely communicate with students via email, and they will all have accounts that you can easily contact through directory listings.  The Google Apps for Education environment will include directory searching in the same way we have now.

	Google Drive will mean online cloud based unlimited file storage! No more cleaning house, deleting files each year.  Google Drive is a cross platform cloud based highly accessible file storage system.  Connect to it via your iPad, desktop, or Chromebook and you now have a way of actually saving items you create on it.  And coming in January Google will be releasing Google Vault, a free archiving system that will ensure that you won't have to worry about losing a file.  It also ties in a tremendous amount of Google applications allowing you to create and store a wealth of material.
	Synchronized calendars with Google Calendar! Add it to your phone, desktop, iPad, or Chromebook.  Get alerts from devices.  Add events from anywhere and receive them anywhere.  With the added benefit of directory connectivity you'll be able to organize like never before.
	Create via a cross platform cloud based desktop publishing environment! Cross-Platform means... whether you are on an iPad, a Chromebook, a desktop or your phone, when you create a document, spreadsheet, or presentation it will look and function exactly the same. What's better is that this connects directly to Google Drive.  It auto saves and retains a revision history every few seconds.  It also allows for collaboration with coworkers.  You can have multiple people working on the same document and track exactly who made what change. Or you can distribute documents easily to anyone in the district or outside with just a few clicks via Sharing. Additionally, you'll be able to migrate those files back and forth between Google Docs and Microsoft Office (which we're still purchasing for desktops.)
	Google Apps for Chrome, Chromebooks, Drive, Extensions, and Add ons The Google Apps market is getting larger and larger, and we will now have access to a wealth of resources available through it.  Pixlr, EasyBib,LucidChart, Edmodo, IXL, Educlipper, and on and on. Plus pretty much any testing software we will need to run is available.
	Google Classroom! Google Classroom is an easy way for teachers to create classrooms, add students, create assignments, receive assignments back, distribute documents, add grades, and every assignment allows you to attach any kind of document, media, or link you'd like.  And it automatically stores and organizes all files in your drive, probably more neatly then I've ever done myself. You really just have to see it in action.
	Inherently functional with Chromebooks! We've purchased over 300 Chromebooks for the district, and we're only looking to increase that number as times goes on.  But with Google Apps for Education both teachers and students will have a perfect combination when matching their Google Apps accounts with Chromebooks.  You'll be able to log on, do all your work, log off, and not leave a trace behind on the device.  No more cluttered devices.
	Create Multimedia Communities! Okay, so this is still a bit more experimental, but we have the ability to take advantage of social media via Google+,  Hangouts, Youtube, and Groups.  For instance I just created a tutorial video combining Hangouts and Youtube.  In the past I've created Google Groups to collaborate for Committees and Activities.   And Google+ will enable us to share all these resources internally if we so desire it, so that we can create communities privately within our school.  We could potentially build our own private YouTube environment, or talk to each other, or do distance  learning.   There's a wealth of possibilities.