Google Apps Education Edition - a free spreadsheet for students

I implement Google Apps Education Edition in my school.

One of the best things about Google Apps is it gives any student with a gmail account a free spreadsheet. I polled students in math classes and only about 1/3 has spreadsheet software at home. Teachers now can assign math homework that requires the use of a spreadsheet - because now all students will have access to a spreadsheet at home. The spreadsheet also is very good at graphing and is used in both math and geography classes. The Google Apps spreadsheet can both export and import Microsoft Excel files.

Math teachers do not need Google Apps Education Edition to be set up for their students to access Google Docs spreadsheets. Math teachers only have to ask their students to get a free gmail account (they automatically get a free spreadsheet as part of the gmail service).

More on Google Apps education edition

For students without high speed Internet - podcasts could be placed on memory sticks which could be signed out of the school library.

As far as communication we have started to use Google Apps (education edition) in our school.
Google Apps is free for schools and has no ads. It allows students and teachers to create documents(Word, Excel, PowerPoint), share calendars, email, chat, create web pages and more. It is secure as everything stays within the registered domain and cannot be accessed by people who do not have a school login. It is an excellent tool to provide elearning. It works on any computer including Macs.

"Frantic troubleshooting by an overworked staff versus someone else fixing problems smoothly. A sliver of server space per person versus a five-gigabyte chunk. Half a million dollars versus free"
Chronicle of Higher Education 1/11/2008

Many schools are registered. See video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYPjJK6LZdM

See what it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJT3pagjd8s

See article
COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY PARTNERS WITH GOOGLE TO ENHANCE E-MAIL AND COLLABORATION SERVICES
http://newsinfo.colostate.edu/index.asp?url=news_item_display&news_item_id=979928202