Posted by Amit Singh, President, Google for Work


I don’t know about you, but it seems like 2016 has started with a bang!

I have an exciting announcement for my first post of the year — now all U.S. government agencies can choose Google Apps for Work and store unlimited content with the assurance that its security is assessed against the FedRAMP standards. Over the holidays, we received a FedRAMP (Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program) Authorization to Operate for Google Apps for Work* and Google App Engine. And because this authorization — along with its ongoing compliance requirements — covers our common infrastructure, it benefits all existing Google Apps for Work and App Engine customers as well.

With 2016 off to a busy start, I’d like to take a moment to reflect on 2015. It was a big year for Google for Work.

We launched new features, powered by machine learning, that do more of the heavy lifting so you can work better and faster. For Sheets, we introduced Explore, which provides instant data analytics and visualization with the click of a button. We added Smart Reply to Inbox, which helps you respond to messages by generating short contextual responses to your emails, based on your typical responses. And we open-sourced TensorFlow, our fast and scalable machine learning system, to accelerate advances within the wider community.

Along with the roll out of Marshmallow to the Android for Work program, we held a virtual conference called Android for Work Live so users all over the world could watch and participate. On Maps, we launched Predict Travel Time — one of the most powerful features from our consumer Google Maps experience —  so businesses and developers can make their location-based applications even more relevant for their users.

We’re continuing to build out and improve Google Cloud Platform at breakneck speed, with nearly 300 combined products and features launched in 2015. Nearline gives you the benefits of cold storage and the pricing of offline backups, but with high availability for your data. Bigtable gives you access to the same database service that powers many of Google’s core products, like Search and Maps. And Custom Machine Types give you the flexibility to create the virtual machine shape that works for you, so you get just the right amount of memory and processing power for your workloads.

We also reached a new milestone — there are now more than 2 million paying businesses using Google Apps for Work, including new customers like Morrisons, Catholic Health Initiatives and Thames Water. Organizations like Broad Institute, HTC, Atomic Fiction and Nomanini that want powerful data analytics and developer platforms, began using and partnering with Google Cloud Platform for everything from tackling genomic data to building innovative mobile payment apps.

Looking ahead, our goal remains the same: empower billions of people to work the way they choose and build what’s next. We’re building simple and secure tools that make it easier for you to focus on the things that matter. Technology can help by assisting with tasks, suggesting how to maximize your time and even proactively surfacing the information you need. It’s going to be an exciting year. Have a look at our full year wrap up and best wishes for a happy and productive 2016!

*Google Apps for Work, Google Apps for Work Unlimited, Google Apps for Education and Google Apps for Nonprofits. Google's dedicated Government edition is also FedRAMP-authorized.

Posted by Rob Pettigrew, Information Technology Director, Wyoming Medical Center

Editor's note: Today’s guest author is Rob Pettigrew, Information Technology Director at Wyoming Medical Center — the first hospital in the United States to go Google. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.


As the IT team at a medical facility, we’re here to help caregivers keep people healthy. Google Apps for Work provides superb reliability and security so we can empower our 1,219 staff members and 233 partner physicians to provide exceptional care. The IT team can now focus on maintaining and improving nearly 200 clinical applications that support services such as cardiology and neurological specialties, instead of worrying about email maintenance.

This is especially important in a rural setting like ours. The state has only about 600,000 people spread over 100 square miles, and we serve as a hub of medical expertise. Even with only 217 beds, we can offer the same services as many larger hospitals by working efficiently. In 2014, we saw 9,000 patients, conducted 5,000 surgeries and welcomed 1,200 new babies into the world.

We previously used Novell GroupWise for calendaring and email, but it was expensive, difficult to support and suffered frequent outages. My crew often spent many late hours trying to get GroupWise working after a server outage. We considered other alternatives. Microsoft SharePoint was too expensive, as were dedicated applications for telemedicine and video conferencing. Microsoft’s cloud offering was a possible contender for email, but it was much more expensive and a less mature product than we would have liked. We made up our minds that Google was the way to go. We trusted their exceptional security and privacy procedures and signed on.

Switching to Google Apps has resulted in six figure savings year after year, including decommissioning multiple physical servers. The flexibility of Google Apps helps us collaborate in ways we never could before. Google Hangouts has helped us advance the quality and reach of care. Now clinicians in remote areas can get advice from specialists, such as our neurosurgeons and cardiologists, helping us spread the wealth of expertise across the state, We also use Google Hangouts to streamline the recruiting and hiring process. Candidates submit resumes by Gmail, and HR staff interviews potential hires via Hangouts.

Nurses also use Google Apps to communicate instantly. With Google Drive and Google Docs they discuss and share data on topics such as medication delivery, credentials, blood-borne pathogens, education and so on. With Google Groups, the medical center uses SMS email addresses to communicate directly to users’ cell phones for staffing requests, trauma calls and other communications that require instant responses.

Much has changed since I joined Wyoming Medical Center in 2006. When I started in 2006, reporting and spotting trends was difficult because data was trapped in rigid enterprise systems such as our electronic medical records (EMR) and human resources (HR) software. Today, we can surface and report on large blocks of data from our electronic medical records and HR databases by using Google Sheets. This agility is a big win for strategic activities like spotting population health trends. It’s clear that Google Apps has been among the most positive shifts in helping our IT team make greater contributions that further the health and well-being of people across Wyoming.

Posted by Ryan Weber, Product Manager, Google Docs

If you’re like most of our Google Apps customers, there’s a good chance you’re working from different locations throughout the day. Whether you’re on a tablet at the breakfast table, a phone on the train or a laptop at the office, it’s important to have a suite of apps that allow you to be productive from wherever you are. So starting today, you can use the same rich commenting experience across Google Docs, Sheets and Slides on your Android and iOS devices. You can now also quickly add a teammate to the conversation just by starting to type their name in a comment.

For the times when you’re at your desk, you’ll notice the new commenting experience makes it easy to instantly insert a comment using the comment bubble that appears on the right side of a doc.

At Google, we know that mobility is critical for today’s professionals. That’s why we continue to invest in features that make being productive on the go simple, such as the Research feature in the Docs Android app, or making the Google Docs app on mobile fullscreen so you can see all the info you need and hide the controls you might not want immediately (although they’re only ever a click away).

Docs, Sheets and Slides are just part of the mobile experience for Google Apps. Join a video meeting from your phone with Hangouts, check your agenda in Calendar, or see your most important emails in Gmail — your apps are in easy reach and help you collaborate from anywhere. Google Apps for Work also includes advanced security and control with complete Device (MDM) and App (MAM) Mobile Management.

Learn more about Google Docs, Sheets and Slides.

Posted by Pete Wayne, CIO, Oscar W. Larson Co.

Editor's note: Today’s guest author is Pete Wayne, chief information officer at Oscar W. Larson Co., a leader in full-service petroleum and fluid handling equipment contracting. Founded in 1946, the company now has more than 300 employees, counts Fortune 100 companies, including GM, Ford, BP and ExxonMobil, as customers, and recently expanded into the automotive, service and airline industries.


While sticking with an old solution might seem safe, it doesn't always guarantee success. This is particularly true in our hometown in the Detroit area, where many of our neighbors worried about losing their jobs after the 2008 recession. We’ve grown our business through tough times by shaking up the status quo. For instance, when we doubled our employee count and ran out of server storage space two years ago, we decided to switch IT solutions — even though many of our employees had used Microsoft for decades and had no experience working in the cloud. After months of research, we opted to migrate to Google Apps for Work, with the expert support of Cloud Sherpas. Here’s what we’ve learned since transitioning from our old way of working to something entirely new:

Google Apps saves us money and time
When we hired 150 new employees in 2013, just getting them company email accounts would’ve required a $26,000 Microsoft system upgrade and a $27,000 storage upgrade. By switching to Google Apps, we saved $65,000 on licensing, storage and server costs. We save time as well by avoiding patch updates and server maintenance.

Google Apps also helps us onboard new employees faster. Because we only have to set up one account for each employee, we don’t need to provision each tablet, phone and computer. We hired 50 people in the last six months, and got each one up and running within minutes.

Google Docs and Drive help us improve efficiency and manage compliance
Technicians need to access manuals and material safety data sheets whenever they’re on the job. We work with Fortune 100 companies that prioritize safety, so compliance is critical. Now, we use Google Drive to ensure our employees have updated information at all times.

Our field technicians used to print their manuals, lug around binders to job sites and flip through hundreds of pages to find the right information. With Drive, we can upload product manuals and safety documents to a shared folder, and technicians can search for the content they need on their phone or laptop.

Google Hangouts let field technicians problem-solve on the spot
We used to send two technicians to every field inspection, so we’d have at least one veteran on site to troubleshoot complicated scenarios. Now that we communicate with Google Apps and can rely on Google Hangouts for instant face-to-face time with veteran technicians who aren’t on site, we only need to send one technician to a job. If our technician needs to call in an expert, he or she can use the Hangouts mobile app. The specialist can see the situation in detail, down to the blown fuse or misplaced wire, and help the technician fix the problem right away. Because we can send just one technician to a job, we have more folks in the field to respond to customer requests.

Google Apps gives us a competitive advantage
We can now communicate more efficiently and access information on demand, which allows us to focus on the service we provide. In addition to consulting with their colleagues via Hangouts to make more informed decisions when proceeding with repairs, our technicians can also provide customers with photos and quotes directly from job sites. With better service, more immediate troubleshooting and instant quotes and photos, we’ve strengthened customer experience.

Sometimes the biggest risk for a business is not taking one at all. Companies need to be smart to survive, and that can mean changing the way they do things. We placed our bet on Google Apps, and it paid off. Google Apps has helped us save time and money and has also helped us build a more efficient, connected and customer-focused business, the business model we needed to stay competitive today and tomorrow.

Posted by Tom Gierke, Google for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: Schools across Illinois are seeing great success with Google for Education. To highlight some of their achievements, we’re featuring Chicago Public Schools, Community Consolidated School District 59 and Waukegan Public Schools. To learn more about Google solutions for Education, join us for a webinar on January 28th at 3pm ET / 12pm PT.


There isn’t a playbook on how to introduce new technologies and online tools in the classroom, but we know that admins and teachers often learn the most from talking to each other. We recently spoke with instructional technology administrators and superintendents in Illinois who use Google for Education tools. Here, they share their recommendations for everything from rolling out hundreds of devices to introducing a new solution to thousands of students and teachers:

1. Get teachers involved 

Whether teachers help evaluate technology solutions or introduce new tools, getting their buy-in can reduce the strain and resources required from IT. Community Consolidated School District 59 (CCSD 59) wanted to increase literacy, collaboration, critical thinking and creativity, but didn’t yet have the right solution in place. The district formed a technology committee of staff from every school to lead its “Innovative Learning Implementation Timeline” and decide how to use technology to amplify learning. When teachers are involved, they can make sure technology and policies are designed to make planning lessons, providing feedback and collaborating more powerful and effective for all learners. Technology adoption will spread like wildfire once they see how it benefits both students and staff.

The educational technology team at Waukegan Public Schools took a similar approach. After the schools introduced Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks, “Lighthouse Lead Learners” were identified at each building to help with professional learning at the building and district levels. “Since the instructional technology staff can’t be at every school all the time, this group of teachers is instrumental to making sure teachers and students get the support they need,” says Mary Mlinar-Stephens, Director of Educational Technology Innovation at Waukegan Public Schools.

2. Let students choose 

Students are more excited to learn when they get to choose how they learn. When CCSD 59 introduced new devices, they gave students the opportunity to use Chromebooks and Android tablets, since each device has different strengths. “We saw the potential of creating a 2:1 program, where students could choose the tools they need, depending on the learning experience,” says Benjamin Grey, Assistant Superintendent for Innovative Learning and Communication at CCSD 59. Watch this video to see how CCSD 59 is using technology to amplify student’s ability to learn.

Schools don’t need to offer students two devices to put this idea into action. Provide students different ways to learn, for example, by letting them choose between a video, slideshow or article. Says Anne Truger, Director of Educational Technology Innovation at Waukegan Public Schools, “Students are paving their own learning path and are choosing the resources that help them learn best.”

3. Look at the district’s culture 

Introducing new tools poses an opportunity for schools to look at organizational culture. Ask admins, board members and teachers what they think the district stands for, and use technology to address those cultural goals. With Google Apps for Education, Chicago Public Schools (case study) created a more collaborative environment across the organization. “By leveraging Google for Education tools, we created a culture of collaboration, open communication and transparency,” says Margaret Hahn, Director of Technology Change Management at Chicago Public Schools.

Jennie Magiera, a Google Certified Innovator, formerly a CPS teacher and now the CIO of a neighboring Illinois district, embodies a spirit of sharing and collaboration. In her Education on Air keynote, she discusses tangible steps to empower students to help transform classroom culture. Jennie and many other CPS educators participate in trainings at peer schools and speak at conferences like Education on Air to share their expertise.

4. Provide technology professional development for teachers

Technology opens new doors for teachers to be innovative and cater lesson plans to different learning styles, but many teachers don’t know about all of the opportunities. Chicago Public Schools organized and hosted a two-day professional development event, Googlepalooza, which featured more than 200 workshops for teachers to learn more about Google for Education tools.

After the free summit, teachers introduced new tools to engage students and collaborate with peers outside the classroom. For example, a civics class used Hangouts to connect with a class in North Carolina and engage in a debate on the civil war. Another teacher incorporated Google Draw in her lesson plan to cater to students who prefer to express their ideas in artistic form. When teachers have the opportunity to learn and practice using new tools, they see even more ways to take their use of technology in the classroom to the next level.

CPS Educators demoing Google Expeditions at Googlepalooza

5. Be Patient
Many schools expect teachers and students to embrace new tools the week they’re adopted, but often it takes months or even years. Getting used to a new way of teaching and learning takes time, and it’s important all stakeholders know that impact can’t be seen overnight. “Explain to boards and superintendents that this is a process,” Grey says. “Don’t expect everything to change in two months. And support your staff on this point — they need to know you’re not keeping score.”

Ross Vittore, Director of Innovative Learning at CCSD 59, captures these schools’ sentiment when he says: “Don’t adopt technology for technology’s sake. You want to create an environment for 21st-century instruction.”

Check out more schools’ stories and join us for a webinar on January 28th at 3pm ET / 12pm PT.

We’ve heard great stories from many of you about how you’re using technology to do amazing things in your schools, so we're going across the U.S. to see for ourselves! Check out the map below to see where we’ve been. We’d love to hear what’s happening in your state, so please share your story on Twitter or Google+ and tag us (@GoogleForEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag.

Posted by Carl Rossey, COO, Raiffeisen Bank

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Carl Rossey, COO of Raiffeisen Bank, one of the top five banks in Romania and a unit of Raiffeisen Bank International. See how Raiffeisen Bank uses Google Apps for Work and Android for Work to work better together across its 527 branches and offer innovative banking services to two million customers.

The way people manage their bank accounts today stands in stark contrast to a decade ago, or even just a few years ago. Where they once walked into branches to deposit or withdraw money and check on their balances, they now use laptops and mobile devices, and they do it from anywhere and at any time of day. As a business, we know we need to change with them, to be as mobile as they are, so we’re on a constant quest to transform both how we work with our customers and how we work ourselves. Moving to Google Apps for Work and using Android for Work are two steps we’ve taken to further that digital transformation. We’re proud to be one of the financial services industry’s earliest adopters of Google to create true mobility for both customers and our team.

Before moving to Google, we were relying on tools that held us back rather than pushed us forward. We were using Lotus Notes, which lacked the necessary collaboration tools and required people to be at their desks to do their work. We had to shuffle presentations and reports back and forth between employees, so new products took months to get to markets.

Our deployment to nearly 5,400 employees took just 90 days, and with the help of our implementation partner Netmail, we’re already on our way towards becoming a completely new bank. During the rollout, for example, we created a Google+ community called “Simply Coll@borate,” and invited employees to share advice and tips on using Google. It quickly became the fastest and most useful channel for seeking guidance on our new tools. And our Project Management Office, the first department to shift all its work to Google, now creates and shares Google Docs and Google Sheets in Google Drive, and builds monthly project reports using Google Slides.

Our Human Resources department used to gather feedback on training and hiring by using paper forms or sending out emails that generated few responses. Now they use Google Forms to make data collection easier and more seamless – like gathering suggestions for improving the quality of HR services. They’re also replacing phone interviews with interviews via Google Hangouts, as meeting candidates over video helps hiring managers get more accurate first impressions. The retail bank sales team also uses Hangouts for sales meetings, saving travel time and costs.

We’ve also completed rolling out smartphones equipped with Android for Work to every employee, and we believe we’ll see our vision for the mobile Raiffeisen Bank team come to life. No longer tied to our desks, we’re free to work in new ways for our customers. We save them time and offer them a higher level of customer service by meeting where they work — or from anywhere using Hangouts on mobile devices. We put the rigid ways of traditional banking behind us and have our sights set on a more flexible, innovative future.

Posted by Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: As we embark on this new year, we wanted to share a letter we sent to our Google for Education customers in North America celebrating the great work of 2015. Thanks to our entire education community for making 2015 such a strong year. We look forward to what we can do together in 2016 for educators and the world’s future inventors and changemakers.


Dear Google for Education Friends and Family,

What a year we’ve shared. First: thank you to the extraordinary teachers, students, administrators and others who make Google for Education strong. We couldn’t do it without you. In 2015 you activated 30,000 Chromebooks every school day more than all other education devices combined and you helped us grow to more than 50 million using Google Apps for Education (GAFE) and 10 million using Classroom.

As educators, you put Chromebooks in the hands of 90,000 students in Charlotte and 84,000 students in Chicago; you moved the entire Montgomery County, Maryland school district to GAFE and Classroom; you improved young learners performance by 19 percent with the support of Google devices at the Isle of Portland Aldridge Community Academy in the UK; and you brought science education to rural Australia using Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) and GAFE at John Monash Science School.

And we’re just getting started: here at Google we’re committed to bringing the best of technology to education. We’re investing heavily in Chromebooks and you can expect to see many new Chromebooks created for you in education. You’ll also see new management features for administrators, interactive educator support in our new Training Center and pioneering Chrome tools like this year’s Share to Classroom extension. And we’ll continue to bring Google innovations to the classroom as we did in September with the Expeditions Pioneer Program — already more than 100,000 students have taken virtual field trips to places like the Great Wall of China and Chichen Itza using Google Cardboard and a phone.

Giving back to education is important to us. Along with offering the GAFE suite and unlimited Drive storage at no cost to schools, this year we contributed more than $50 million, including more than $14M to education nonprofits, $1.3M in scholarships, and $21.7M funding new research. With programs like Google Science Fair, Made with Code, CS First and Doodle4Google, we’re working to inspire and encourage young people to solve tomorrow’s problems through curiosity, creativity and code.

Thank you so, so much. Your support in 2015 was an inspiration to us. We wish you a Happy New Year, and we hope to continue to do great things together in 2016.

Hiroshi Lockheimer
Senior Vice President for Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast

Take a look through our Google for Education 2015 Year in Review.

Stay in touch in 2016 at google.com/edu with our blog, Google+, Twitter or a Google Educator Group.

Posted by Rhonda Stites, Global Head of Industry Solutions, Google for Work

Coming out of the holiday rush, retailers are already thinking about the year ahead and how to compete in 2016 and beyond. We’re headed to the industry’s largest global event, Retail’s Big Show (January 17-20 in New York City), hosted by the National Retail Federation (NRF), to talk about just that. With more than 30,000 attendees, Retail’s Big Show is the hub of conversations about retail innovation. Many of our own customers will be there, and we look forward to hearing how they’re evolving for the digital age.

Thousands of the world’s top retailers rely on Google Apps, Chrome, Google Maps, Google Cloud Platform and Google Search to work better, wherever they are — from designing the latest trends to selling must-have gadgets (see top tips from our retail customers).

With customized retail tools and APIs, Google helps retailers to master fast fashion, create leaner supply chains and gain a better understanding of customer data. Retailers can grow revenue, reduce costs and innovate quickly.

On the first day of Retail’s Big Show, our partner PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) will host a panel of retailers innovating with Google Apps: Chico’s, Kohl’s, OVS SpA and Waitrose. These customers will discuss how retail CIOs are leading organizational transformation and how their teams transitioned to Google Apps — which reduced costs, strengthened customer experience, shortened product launch cycles and improved how their teams work together on a global scale.

We’re continuing to build an ecosystem of solutions that support the next generation of digital business in retail — including partnerships with technologies for retail workforce management, digital signage, and merchandising, planning, operations and supply chain. Googlers will be hanging out in partner booths at Retail’s Big Show to talk more about these integrations. Look for us in the booths for Kronos Software, Scala and JDA Software to learn about our joint solutions and offerings, and stay tuned for future blog posts from each of these partners and their Google for Work integration stories.

If you’re planning to attend Retail’s Big Show, we hope to see you at the Connected Retailing panel on January 17 at 3:15 p.m. in Hall E, 1E 07.

Posted by Chris Shirer, President and Chief Strategist of Madison + Fifth

Editor's note: Today we hear from Chris Shirer, President and Chief Strategist of the digital brand management agency Madison + Fifth. Read how Madison + Fifth and Google Maps for Work Partner Woolpert used Google Maps APIs to build an interactive kiosk and mobile apps for the 60-acre Liberty Center mixed-use shopping center.

When the Liberty Center retail center outside of Cincinnati approached us to provide accessible, intuitive wayfinding for visitors, we saw the opportunity to create something unique — not just a standard kiosk and printed directory. The center includes shopping, restaurants, a hotel, offices and luxury housing, so we wanted to make sure visitors could get around quickly, especially during busy times like this past holiday shopping season. We decided to build a solution that would work on touchscreen kiosks and mobile devices to detect visitors’ locations and give them interactive walking directions in real time.

We chose Google Maps and Google Maps APIs to do it because Google offers a familiar interface for our customers, lets us layer custom information on top of maps and provides a platform that will allow us to add new features, like delivering relevant, location-based ads. We worked closely with Google Maps for Work Partner Woolpert to build the solution. Woolpert not only helped us with licensing information, but also did the programming based on our design and requirements.

Because we wanted the directory to work with both touchscreen kiosks and iOS and Android devices, we built a Web app using the Google Maps JavaScript API. The app scales automatically up to the large size of the kiosk and down to smartphones’ small screen sizes. With a Web app, we don’t have to build and maintain apps on multiple devices, and visitors with smartphones don’t have to download anything to use the service.

We started building the app before the Liberty Center was finished and opened to the public, which meant that Google didn’t yet have mapping information for the center’s streets and stores. We solved this by building a layer with the required information on top of the map. In addition, we had no routing information, so we built an algorithm to provide directions using open source Google Optimization Tools.

Liberty Center opened its doors on October 22, 2015, and thanks to Google Maps, we’re now delivering an engaging, interactive experience for visitors. People who walk up to the kiosks or use the Web app on their smartphones get customized walking directions based on their current location, and can zoom in and out around the property to explore shops and other destinations. Liberty Center shoppers can spend less time getting from place to place and more time in stores and enjoying time together in restaurants.

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog)

Posted by Alix Braverman and Brent Sarver, Google for Education team

Editor's note: We're going across the country to highlight the great things schools are doing with technology. We talked to educators and administrators in Pennsylvania to hear how they’re creating innovative learning environments. Technology is empowering teachers to transform traditional classrooms into collaborative student-driven environments in the historic Keystone State. Pennsylvania is setting the pace for Northeast schools through its success with Google for Education. To learn more about Google solutions for Education, join us for a webinar on January 28th at 3pm ET / 12pm PT.

Education in the 21st century is about more than making sure students pass the class and understand the concepts. It’s centered around teaching students skills for the future, commonly known as the 4Cs: creativity, communication, critical thinking and collaboration. Schools in Pennsylvania are using Google for Education tools to provide teachers with the resources they need to bake the 4Cs into their lesson plans and provide students with diverse learning opportunities. We’re highlighting a few ways Pennsylvania schools are teaching students 21st century skills:

Fueling creativity and student-driven learning 

With Google Classroom, students at Indiana Area School District have the tools to receive one-on-one instruction outside of the classroom and create innovative projects that they’re passionate about. With 24/7 access to their teachers via Classroom, students can request feedback as they work on an assignment and ask questions that they might not have felt comfortable asking in class. If students prefer face-to-face feedback, they can hop on a Google Hangout with their teacher.

“Google Apps for Education has enabled me to give kids more opportunities to work together and with me. It puts the kids at the center of their education,” says Matt Neil, social studies teacher at Indiana Area Senior High School.

Teachers direct students to shared resources to help them improve certain skill sets, so they can expand their creativity. “With Google for Education, students gain autonomy while teachers have the means to pervasively develop new curriculum and learning opportunities,” says Rich Kiker, certified Google Education Trainer and founder and CEO of Kiker Learning, a Google for Education professional development implementation partner.

Creating stronger lines of communication among teachers 

Teachers at Pennsbury School District use Google Apps for Education to create a shared resource hub, so they can provide students with more individualized learning opportunities. Teachers communicate about students’ learning styles, strengths and areas for improvement and can easily find resources that help them learn best, whether they’re visual, auditory or tactile learners.

“As a special educator, I can easily share and edit Google Docs with teachers to best meet the needs of the students,” says Jeanne Caputo, teacher and room support provider at Charles Boehm Middle School. “When I don’t have time to fully prep teachers in person, Google for Education lets us quickly communicate student goals and plans.”

“Greater communication has a direct positive impact on individual and team effectiveness,” says Amanda Durham, English teacher at Pennsbury High School. “Diversifying learning experiences, in terms of content or medium, truly enhances curriculum.”

Reinforcing the power of critical thinking 

Middle school students in Wilson School District using Chromebooks in the classroom

The mission at Wilson School District (case study) is to empower students to create their own future. Teachers put this mission into action by teaching students the 4Cs and providing them with technology skills they’ll need for future success. Students use devices with Google Apps for Education in a 1:1 environment, so they can engage with technology throughout the school day. These tools give students access to countless ideas, perspectives and methods for solving problems, empowering students to ask questions and take a critical approach to learning.

“In pretty much any career path we choose, it’s guaranteed that we will need the knowledge and skills to work with technology,” says Sneha Anmalsetty, a junior at Wilson High School. “The 1:1 initiative is guiding us towards becoming better technology users.”

Boosting collaboration across grade levels

At Wilson School District, second grade students are using Google Hangouts to collaborate via a virtual shared classroom with seventh grade students in New Jersey. The second graders submit science questions using Google Forms that the seventh graders use as inspiration for presentations, videos and other learning tools. Once their research is complete, seventh graders teach virtual classes answering the second graders’ questions.

“The creativity, communication, collaboration and critical thinking skills the students in those two classrooms are developing through the use of Google for Education is life-changing,” says Dr. Amy Flannery, director of curriculum for Wilson SD. “Google’s impact on lesson creation and delivery is radically changing curriculum development.”

We’ve heard great stories from many of you about how you’re using technology to do amazing things in your schools, so we're going across the U.S. to see for ourselves! Check out the map below to see where we’ve been. We’d love to hear what’s happening in your state, so please share your story on Twitter or Google+ and tag us (@GoogleForEdu) or include the #GoogleEdu hashtag.

Posted by Jim O’Neill, Chief People Officer at HubSpot


Editor's note: Today’s guest blog comes from Jim O’Neill, Chief People Officer at HubSpot, the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform.


As a fast-growing SaaS company providing the world’s leading inbound marketing and sales platform, top technology solutions aren’t just a bonus at HubSpot; they’re an expectation. We aim to hire savvy employees who expect the benefits of modern, efficient tools for better collaboration and mobility. Our dynamic workforce appreciates the latest technologies, and as a business we need to stay up to speed. The relationship between people and technology is especially important to me as HubSpot’s chief people officer and former chief information officer; I’m particularly focused on how our people are adopting new technology.

We switched from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps in 2010 when the cloud was still more of an idea than a reality for most businesses. We loved that Apps allowed us to work from anywhere and that many of our employees already loved using tools like Gmail and Google Docs. Plus, our costs are now more than three times less per user, per year, using Google Apps.

Apps eliminated worries about system maintenance and upgrades, while offering us the storage space we needed. For example, our co-founder and CTO Dharmesh Shah stores more than 20GB of data in his inbox alone.

Five years after going Google, employee adoption continues to drive our technology decisions. We observe the products that are gaining traction among our team and standardize on the ones that reach critical mass. We also collect feedback about our team’s technology preferences and usage.

In addition to Apps, we’ve also seen the growing popularity of other tools, like messaging platform Slack. A huge benefit of these types of products (similarly to Apps) is that they require little or no IT maintenance. We can measure this by the number of IT tickets we receive, which dropped from dozens regarding things like syncing issues and PST file corruption to nearly none as a result of using easy-to-manage, cloud-based tools like Apps.

In addition, we’ve integrated Chromeboxes and Hangouts into daily life at HubSpot. Nearly half of our conference rooms are equipped with Chromeboxes, and nine times out of 10 our employees request this set-up over proprietary third-party hardware that is historically quite expensive when compared to Chromebox. As an employee preference and more than 4x cost saver, Chromebox is an ideal solution for on-the-spot or routine team meetings. People love the flexibility to stay connected with their teams, whether through ad hoc chats or planned meetings. We even have a team member named Jordan who is based in Alabama and connects through video Hangout almost all day, every day. We also use Hangouts on mobile to chat on the go. When you’re constantly in transit, like I am, the mobile experience is key.

HubSpot is focused on creating a leading technology platform, and the products we use should reflect this goal. The future of work involves tools that are available on the public Internet — legacy systems with VPNs and private networks require more IT maintenance and cause friction, which just doesn’t cut it for us. We’re constantly prioritizing how we can offer our employees the latest and greatest tech, and Google plays a major role in helping us achieve this.

Posted by Ken Hoetmer, Product Manager, Google Maps APIs


For the past ten years, Google Maps APIs have helped over 2 million apps and websites bring the very best of Google Maps to their customers — a familiar map interface combined with global, comprehensive and up-to-date data and imagery.

Today, we’re starting to roll out changes to the Google Maps APIs Premium Plan that give customers access to Maps API Credits, a single usage quota applicable across our suite of services. Maps API Credits make it easier to use multiple Google Maps APIs, allowing customers to bring the best of Google Maps to everything they build without having to change their plan.

In addition to Maps API Credits, customers of the new Premium Plan will continue to have access to the following:

• High volume usage – flexible plans for high volume usage
• Technical support and SLAs – 24 hour technical support and service level agreement (SLA)
• Additional implementations – including asset tracking, external, internal and OEM implementations that are not covered by the Google Maps APIs Standard Plan.

One Google customer, Doctor on Demand, has been using Maps APIs Credits through their Premium Plan through our early testing program."By upgrading to the Premium Plan with the new Maps API Credits, we have maximum flexibility to continue to innovate and add functionality without requiring us to rework our contract and paperwork. We can focus on continuing to build our platform and business to further innovate and improve our patient experience," said Adam Jackson, Co-Founder and CEO of Doctor on Demand.

To learn more about the changes, check out our documentation and FAQs