Google Apps Education Edition is a technology solution that can help your school or class organize, communicate and collaborate in a safe online environment for free. The applications are web based which means that there is nothing to install or download and you can access it from anywhere. Google provides tutorials and helps you manage the account so you can focus on the human connection in your school. You can also use your own domain. Along with all of these tools, Google also provides access to education communities, lesson ideas and hosts free webinars about utilizing their tools in the classroom.

Available Apps for the Education Edition

Gmail - You can create an email account for every teacher, student and staff person at your school with 6.5 GB of storage space. From their accounts, they can also chat with others in the system if you enable them. You can upload a spreadsheet of names and Google will generate a list with passwords. If students forget their password you can always retrieve it. Google email security also comes free with the Education edition which means customizable inbound and outbound filters.

Google Calendar - Not only can you keep your own affairs in order but you can share the calendar to keep others in the loop as well. You could create multiple calendars for yourself making some viewable to the group and some private. Calendars can also be enabled to allow others to edit them which is great for collaborative projects. The calendars can be displayed on your website which will help keep parents informed.

Google Docs -  Everyone gets access to web based documents, spreadsheets and presentations which can be kept private, shared or worked on collaboratively.  Several people could work on one document in real time from several computers. This is also great for meetings and group discussions. Everyone could participate as ideas are generated, take turns recording parts of the discussion or updating the details of the document as you debate it's elements. When the meeting is over, everyone has a completed representation of the meeting.

Google Sites - You can create and maintain a website the same way you would any word document, which means very little technical skills are required. You can add multimedia to the pages and provide links to other useful resources on the internet. The site could be kept within your online school community, made public or kept private.  Other teachers or students could be invited to the site as a viewer, collaborator or owner depending on your purpose for the site. You could also create multiple sites for different purposes with different audiences. One private site could be strictly for note taking and research with pictures, videos and links embedded within the notes. The notes could then be accessed from anywhere. A site could also be used as a rough draft site that can be copied to your other public site when it is ready to be published. Teachers could create a private site together that they could use to share ideas, keep updates about students or keep track of who's bringing coffee for the teacher's lounge tomorrow.

Google Talk - You can call or text others within your Google community for free.