Google Webinar - Personal Experiences

I was in on a Webinar on Wednesday.  Deforest High School in Wisconsin shared with the group how they moved through being a Google Apps school.  It was really nice to hear from someone in Wisconsin on what they had to do to be successful.  I know Google Apps can really change how teachers and student share work and complete tasks, but if the implementation goes awkwardly then it can stop it before it takes off.  Luckily or unluckily this is falling under my task list for the year.  I have a great tech person to work with, but roadblocks are a big concern of my for faculty buy in.

Here are some of my notes from the Webinar:

Deforest has gmail for grades 9-12, switching to 5-8 in next two weeks.  They don't have a curricular need for email for grades 3-4.  They can lock down(walled garden) the lower levels to only email within the domain.  They have not had a problem with bullying online with email.  Teach the teachers how to supervise

No minimum age to make gmail available through google apps

Deforest uses graduation years as a way to group students.  This is a mirror for how they organize the network.  That way when students move up a year and need more apps, they become available easier than using the group 1st grade etc.

They use the domain name deforestschools.org.  They already owned the domain name.  They are going to switch over all teachers and students to gmail and get out of groupwise.

The use of calendars was huge for signup labs and communicating with parents/peers

These notes will help me to move forward on getting our school up to speed with technology tools, if I can get more teach buy in.  Does anyone have any advice for me on this?