Welcome to Living Portals & Systems.

At Living Portals & Systems, we build e-Communities, People and Systems. Our slogan completely captures our corporate and business orientation. Our Vision/Mission is to build e-Communities (we have a few active, ongoing and future Projects); People (we believe that in building the Youth, we are building a People; and in building a People, we build a Nation. We have a passion for Youth Work and view it as our corporate responsibility to our community); Systems (we are passionate about improving  Services and Systems by utilizing convinience technology).

The more you know; the more you know that you do not know.

— Unknown

Google Apps Education Edition: An Overview

TechnicalSupport's picture

 

1.      What is Google Apps?
“Google Apps Education Edition is a broad IT solution that schools can use to bring communication and collaboration tools to the entire academic community for free. Google manages all the technology details, so you can focus your time, energy and budgets on teaching your students.”
“Students, teachers and staff can share ideas more quickly and get things done more effectively when they have access to the same powerful communication and sharing tools.
Google Apps Education Edition lets tech administrators provide email, sharable online calendars, instant messaging tools and even a dedicated website to faculty, students and staff for free. There's no hardware or software to install or maintain, since everything is delivered through a standard web browser -- anytime, from anyplace.”
2.      How much does Google Apps cost?
It’s free! Just as expensive CAD software, office suites and more are provided free to schools, so Google Apps Education Edition is available free-of-charge. The rationale behind these moves, of course, is so that the product becomes (or remains) industry standard. Google Apps partners may however offer setup and support services at a very minimal charge.
3.      What can Google Apps do?
Google Apps Education Edition could help transform learning in an educational institution from being within-four-walls to happening anywhere! Students and staff can access their work and collaborate at the touch of a button from any place with an Internet connection. Shared calendars can keep staff, pupils and parents up-to-date with events and forthcoming deadlines. Students can easily share the results of their learning with the world!
Educational institutions can pick-and-choose from offering the following options:
4.      What are the advantages of Google Apps?
Everything in one place: Staff, students and alumni have everything they need in one place. It’s installed on the institution’s domain so the ‘homepage’ can be a pupil’s/staff member’s start page. A single sign-on suffices for all the functionality on offer.
Ease of communication & collaboration: contact details can be easily (and automatically) shared, staff and pupils can collaborate on documents, websites and presentations using Google’s easy-to-use web-based software.
Low-maintenance: upgrades to software and new features can be made with one click, or automatically, depending on settings. Security risks are minimized using Google’s enterprise-level servers.
It’s free: Google Apps Education Edition is being used by educational institutions worldwide who are making savings vs. using commercial offerings. Although Google make a great deal of their revenue from advertising, there is none on the Google Apps Education Edition.
Technical support: Google offer free 24/7 support, including phone support for critical issues. There are also online support resources for frequently asked questions and potential problems.
Mobile access: Google Apps can be accessed via special stripped-down versions for mobile devices. This means that pupils and staff can access mail, documents, etc. via their PDA or mobile phone.
Do educational institutions have to use Google’s solution for email?
An alternative to Google Apps Education Edition is Google Apps Team Edition. This allows users to sign themselves up using their school email address. They can then access the other collaborative features of Google Apps Education Edition. Later, ICT administrators for the school’s domain can take over to migrate email and take further control. Google Apps Team Edition allows educational institutions to ‘test the water’ before they roll it out school-wide.
Video of Google Apps Team Edition in action: http://www.google.com/apps/video/
team_edition_video.html
 
Further reading:
★ Google Apps Education Edition.
★ Wikipedia: Google Apps.
★ Olchfa School, Wales:- (Google Apps accounts for all pupils/staff).
★ Digital Geography: Google Apps - The Next Step.
★ BBC News: Google’s email for universities.
★ Official Google Blog: One Year Mark for Google Apps Education Edition.
★ Google@School: More Universities Announce Google Apps on Campus.
★ Google Goes To School: (examples of schools/universities using Google Apps).

 

 

  Mon, 04/19/2010 - 15:15 - TechnicalSupport

Web Design

At Living Portals & Systems, we design quality & professional-looking websites. We are a web design firm that believes having a website is instrumental in running your business or nonprofit organization. You need a beautiful and intuitive web design, with content easily edited by staff or volunteers, with useful features that save time and money. We build our websites using the Drupal Web Design platform. Drupal is an open-source PHP, content management system (CMS). It is easy to install and use and can provide powerful tools for content management without a lot of effort.

Domain Name Registration

Your domain name — it's how the online world finds you.

A domain name, or Web address, is an address where you can be found online. It's how you'll express yourself through email or your website and it's what customers think of when trying to find you. Living Portals & Systems can get help you register your desired domain name online fast. Whatever your situation, if there's a particular name that you want, it's good to register it quickly. There's no guarantee that a domain name available today will be available tomorrow. Search today and get online fast.
NOTE however, that we only host domain names which belong to legitimate individuals, organizations and entities.

Web Hosting

In order to meet the varied needs of different types of websites we offer a wide range of web hosting services. Basically, our shared hosting includes everything needed for an average personal or business website. We also have specific packages created for blogs, ecommerce websites, popular CMS and other applications. We also offer higher-end solutions like semi dedicated, dedicated and cloud hosting. At Living Portals & Systems, our web hosting package includes a complete cPanel web hosting account for the full term ordered. cPanel enables easy management of your domain name and website content, plus 99.9% uptime guaranteed and full technical support.