Google Data

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Lieutenant LeAnne Browning from the Atlanta Police Department (APD). She and her colleagues have incorporated search and mapping data into police operations to make the department more efficient. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

At the Atlanta Police Department, our 2,000-plus sworn officers are devoted to working with the community to develop innovative problem-solving strategies. Thanks to these efforts, the crime rate dropped by 44% between 2000 and 2012. We’re proud of our strong reputation among Atlanta residents and law enforcement agencies around the world.

But we know we can always do better, which is why we started Operation Shield back in 2007. The goal is to further prevent crime and improve emergency preparedness with cutting-edge technology and private sector partnerships. One major component is our Video Integration Center (VIC), a surveillance hub and physical security information management platform built with Google Maps technology that gives us instant access to 2,500 cameras throughout the city. When a 911 call comes in, it’s automatically plotted in Google Maps and paired with the nearest live camera images. That way, operators can give real-time information to responding officers rushing to the scene.

Now we’re using Google Search Appliance (GSA) to make the VIC even more powerful. Our partner, Edge360, helped us develop Search360, a search and investigative tool built with GSA that allows operators to search across multiple databases for details like prior incidents at the same address, license plate numbers or descriptions of subjects. Since the system is integrated with Google Maps, it runs automated searches based on geocoding to give analysts fast visual representation of search results. This helps them generate a photographic lineup to send to the responding detective’s mobile data terminal, smartphone or tablet before he or she reaches the crime scene.

Gathering information for investigations used to be slow and tedious. As a detective seven years ago, I had to travel to the scene, interview victims and witnesses, then spend hours or even days back in the office running searches in multiple databases, such as our mugshots database or our report management system. With help from Edge360 and Google, that process is almost instantaneous.

When I joined the department 19 years ago, I never imagined how technology could work in tandem with the traditional tools police officers rely on—our instinct and experience. But that’s exactly what’s happening with Operation Shield. We’re hoping it will improve the quality of life for Atlanta residents by making our streets, parks and neighborhoods safer and more prepared than ever before.

(Cross-posted on the Google Chrome Blog)

Spring has finally arrived in the U.S. And with the new growth the season brings, we’re happy to expand our Chromebook family. Together with Intel, today we’re announcing a new lineup of Chromebooks with Intel inside from leading manufacturers Acer, Asus, Dell, HP, Lenovo, LG and Toshiba—spanning an entire range of shapes, sizes, colors and configurations.

Lenovo’s N20p Chromebook and Thinkpad YOGA 11e Chromebook offer options for touchscreen and hinge designs that enable tablet or tented-angle usage, so they’re just as easy to use at your desk or coffee table, on your lap or at school.

ASUS is following the success of their Chromebox (now the most popular desktop on Amazon.com) by introducing two new laptops: The ASUS C200 Chromebook (11-inch) and ASUS C300 Chromebook (13-inch).

New versions of the Dell Chromebook 11 and the Acer C720 Chromebook will be powered by Intel’s Core i3 processor, which packs the additional performance to help you get things done faster. These new Chromebooks, along with a new 13-inch Toshiba model, a Chromebox from HP, and the LG Chromebase (the first all-in-one computer running Chrome OS), will be available in retail over the next few months.

We hope that you get a chance to try one—or more—of these new Chromebooks soon.

As a former high school math teacher, I know all too well that teachers spend a ton of valuable time doing things other than teaching—waking up early to grade quizzes, collecting and returning piles of paper assignments, and battling copy machine paper jams. But with today’s technology it doesn’t have to be this way. Many teachers and professors have found ways to use technology to be better educators and avoid busy work. We spent the past year working closely with many educators to understand the systems they use to simplify their workloads, so they can get back to doing what they love—teaching.

Today, in honor of Teacher Appreciation Day, we’re announcing a preview of Classroom, a new, free tool in the Google Apps for Education suite. It helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease. Classroom is based on the principle that educational tools should be simple and easy to use, and is designed to give teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn.

With Classroom, you’ll be able to:

• Create and collect assignments: Classroom weaves together Google Docs, Drive and Gmail to help teachers create and collect assignments paperlessly. They can quickly see who has or hasn’t completed the work, and provide direct, real-time feedback to individual students.
• Improve class communications: Teachers can make announcements, ask questions and comment with students in real time—improving communication inside and outside of class.
• Stay organized: Classroom automatically creates Drive folders for each assignment and for each student. Students can easily see what’s due on their Assignments page.

We know that protecting your students’ privacy is critical. Like the rest of our Apps for Education services, Classroom contains no ads, never uses your content or student data for advertising purposes, and is free for schools.

Starting today, teachers and professors can apply for a preview of Classroom. Based on the requests we receive, we’ll be inviting a limited number of educators to try Classroom in about a month. By September, Classroom will be available to any school using Google Apps for Education. Since we want to make sure Classroom plays well with others, if you’re a developer or partner, sign up to learn more about integrating with Classroom.

We’ve been working with more than a dozen pilot schools and universities to try out Classroom and provide feedback—and we can’t thank them enough. We can’t wait to hear your feedback, and to work together to make Classroom even better.

Cristin: What impact have you have seen from using Google for Education that you couldn’t get with other products?

Susan: Google tools offer more possibilities for addressing a variety of student learning styles, which puts the kids in the “driver’s seat” as far as engagement goes. Whatever you did before technology — packets, worksheets, notes, dry erase boards — you can do on a tablet or Chromebook. It’s all inside.

Todd: In many of our Chromebook classes we’ve seen a big shift towards collaborative, student-centered learning. In these classrooms, you’ll find students that are self-directed, working at their own pace, switching between tasks with ease, and constantly working with their peers, both virtually and face-to-face. And in classes that use Nexus tablets, we’ve seen teachers finding new ways to differentiate instruction, giving students access to different apps, books and videos based on each student’s different needs.

Jennifer: Not only do I see the students engaged more, but they take ownership of their learning. They have the world at their fingertips at all times and can find out the answer to anything at any moment. They even email me resources that they find at all hours to help them and their peers understand and study the concepts that we are learning in class.

Cristin: Was there anything particularly surprising about the impact of Google for Education at your schools?

Todd: There were concerns that increased technology usage would take away personal interactions, but we actually found that the majority of students and teachers in our programs feel closer. They take advantage of the technology tools to stay connected whenever and wherever they choose. Teachers spend more time working with individuals and small groups, because the new technology has allowed them to monitor what each student is doing at any given time and adjust instruction on the fly.

Cristin: What’s your advice for teachers getting started with Google Apps for Education?

Carrie: Take full advantage of Google Apps to encourage teamwork. The most unexpected impact I’ve seen has to be the camaraderie between the students — and myself. There’s a willingness to problem-solve and help one another when working within the technology. These technologies foster teamwork otherwise not possible in the traditional classroom.

Susan: Ease into it and let the kids help. They catch on quickly. It’s always good to have a few kids in the classroom who can be the experts and roam around the room to help you and the other students.

Cristin: What’s your advice for educators whose students will have Chromebooks in their classrooms?

Todd: Learn the basics before doing anything in the classroom. This goes for teachers and students — everybody should know how to use Gmail (for sending, receiving, and organizing mail), Google Drive (for creating, naming, sharing documents and folders), and Calendar (for organizing agendas and tasks).

Jennifer: Yes — start with the Google Apps basics, but also join online professional communities, such as Edutopia, to learn about how other teachers are finding success with Chromebooks in the classroom. The Chromebook is your paper and pencil — you can do pretty much anything on it that you did before, but with newer, exciting tools.

Cristin: Finally, what advice do you have for teachers getting started with tablets with Google Play for Education?

Cara: Tablets with Google Play for Education help teachers search for tools and apps by grade level, content or curriculum standards. Take your time to look through what is available and test out the app yourself or with a small group of students before rolling it out to everyone.

Susan: Encourage students to stay organized from the start using some simple tools. They can try Google’s app Keep. It’s great for organizing & note taking, and everything can be saved on Drive. Also AnyDo is a great organizational tool to help students accomplish all their tasks.

Todd: I would also advise that teachers not put pressure on themselves to become masters of the technology. There is too much to learn, too little time to do it, and once you learn it, everything changes anyway! Teachers should continue to be the experts in their subject matter, learn enough to facilitate the technology, and design learning experiences where students are the ones working hardest in the classroom.

Jennifer Tuller and Carrie Sanchez are 5th grade science teachers at Auten Road Intermediate School in New Jersey, part of the Hillsborough Township School District — the first district to offer its students and staff the complete Google for Education solution. In Hillsborough, the students and teachers work together with Google Apps, Chromebooks and tablets with Google Play for Education.

When we visited Jen and Carrie’s classrooms a few weeks ago to see how students used the tools, I was extremely inspired by what I saw. Students were working on an ecocolumn project, where they were closely observing the interaction between living and non-living elements in land and water environments. Before this year, the teachers told me, students had to individually log their observations on paper, which limited them from working as a group. But this year, students eagerly documented their observations together in real-time with Google Docs on their Chromebooks, compared the growth in their ecosystems by looking through the photos they had taken with their tablets, and presented the final report of their findings through Movenote — an app in Google Play for Education.

Carrie Sanchez

The kind of new, collaborative learning I saw in Jen’s and Carrie’s classrooms reinforced the impact of simple and powerful tools when used together. Inspired by the Auten Road students and their ecocolumn project, we put together this video. Everytime I watch it, I smile thinking about the kids working together to construct their own ecosystems and wish I could have done a project just like it when I was in 5th grade.

Later today we’ll share an in-depth interview with Carrie, Jennifer and some of the other teachers from the Hillsborough school district, who will provide some tips about how to drive classroom impact with Google for Education.

Editor’s note: Our guest blogger is Andrei Zimiles, Co-founder and CEO of the vertical healthcare network Doctor.com. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Choosing a doctor can be difficult. Many of us turn to peer recommendations and word-of-mouth reviews when selecting a physician, but credible reviews are few and far between.

At Doctor.com, our mission is to connect the millions of patients in America with the right healthcare providers. Our core business is an online directory platform with detailed profiles of more than two million licensed healthcare practitioners in America. Visitors to our site can search for doctors by location, insurance plan, languages spoken, gender and other criteria. This January, we began deploying an application to efficiently collect credible patient reviews of their doctors, which we publish at Doctor.com and across a growing network of top healthcare websites such as the recently launched YourDoctor.com, a joint venture with Healthline, one of the web’s most popular destinations for healthcare information and tools.

Chromebooks are allowing us to scale this program quickly and efficiently. We send every doctor who opts in an Acer Chromebook, which typically sits at the receptionist counter. At checkout, patients are encouraged to spend a few minutes entering anonymous feedback about their doctor as they wait for their paperwork to go through. This feedback is immediately sent to our team, and we vet and publish reviews on the Doctor.com network according to strict guidelines. This combination of credible reviews from patients and a wide network of important healthcare sites is unique in the marketplace and a win-win for both our doctor and patient users.

A review system is only useful when it’s robust, scalable and incorporates the feedback of many patients. The speed and simplicity of Chromebooks makes them easy to work into the offices’ existing workflow. We could have used any number of devices, but Chromebooks were, by far, the most cost-efficient, patient-friendly and secure devices out there. With the Acer Chromebook, we are able to deploy the device cost-effectively and can pass that savings along to the doctors we work with.

From a security and IT perspective, our deployment team has enjoyed working with the Chromebook as a technology platform, particularly with the extra features made possible via Google’s Management Console. Initial set-up is very efficient both in the pre-staging at our offices and once deployed to the doctor’s offices. Out of all the Chromebooks that we have deployed we have not had any issues and we are seeing fantastic engagement from patients that are using them.

At Doctor.com we believe in improving the way patients and doctors connect through the use of disruptive technologies. The real-time feedback made possible by the Chromebook platform is a great example of this. We are simultaneously helping doctors understand how to improve the care they provide and helping patients make more informed decisions about which doctors will be best suited to their needs.

We are pleased to be partnered with Google on this exciting project and look forward to exploring further innovations using the Chrome OS and Chromebook platform in the future.

Family road trips have changed a lot in the last few decades. Remember when we were kids and the drive to Disneyland required four printed maps? When we whined and asked “Are we there yet?” our parents had to unfold a mess of paper maps and estimate the distance in knuckles.

Things are different now. Thanks to smartphones and connected cars, drivers know exactly how long it takes to get where they need to go. No map-unfolding required. But for organizations, it’s no longer just about getting from point A to point B. Mapping technology can solve problems across scenarios at work, from sales planning to emergency management. The next transformation of business is here — and maps is a big reason why.

According to Boston Consulting Group, geospatial services generated $1.6 trillion in revenue for U.S. businesses in 2011, and saved them another $1.4 trillion. Yet, the same research shows that 95% of businesses still aren’t realizing the broad benefits of maps. That’s both the challenge and the staggering potential: most leaders don’t understand all that location information can do for their operations and revenue.

By combining multiple types of data in one clear picture, organizations can use mapping technology to:

1. Prepare, respond and recover in any situation. Create a common operating picture, and respond to circumstances more quickly and efficiently.
2. Decide with instant insights. Make savvy decisions with data you can see, and stay a step ahead of changes.
3. Inform stakeholders quickly and reliably. Transparency = loyalty. Share information that matters with customers and citizens.
4. Drive acquisition, from online to offline. The world’s gone digital, but many brands still want to inspire purchases in-store. Create a seamless buying experience from on-to-offline.
5. Coordinate mobile teams, wherever they are. Business starts, and ends, with people. Better coordinate your teams, no matter where they are.
6. Monitor assets, anytime, anywhere. Get your assets in gear: Know their location and status at all times.

Over the next few months, we’re going to share stories from six business leaders who are embracing maps. They’ll tell us how turning to cloud-based mapping technology is driving impressive results, including reducing operating costs, dramatically increasing revenue, driving an uptick in collaboration, and helping them better understand business insights.

Sign up for our exclusive “Maps are going Google” series to learn how location is driving the future of business.

(Cross-posted on the Google Cloud Platform Blog)

Editor’s note: Today’s guest post is from Jeff Trom, CTO at Webfilings, a Software-as-a-Service provider that develops cloud-based solutions for business reporting.

At Webfilings, we’re reinventing complex business reporting. Wdesk, our flagship product, is an enterprise solution that is transforming how companies manage and report complex business data. It’s a collective workspace for teams to come together to build documents and reports without having to go to IT for assistance. Using Wdesk, financial teams have quickly become accustomed to how the cloud has simplified collaboration, provided global accessibility and eliminated the replication of data and documents.

What started as an idea to automate SEC reporting has now grown to a robust offering that supports more than 60% of the Fortune 500 in just 4 years since launch. We’ve been able to build a great company and culture where rapid innovation and best-in-class customer service are key.

We rely on Google Cloud Platform to make a formerly onerous process seem easy. Cloud Platform replicates our terabytes of data across multiple datacenters seamlessly and allows our developers to focus on innovation, not infrastructure. We deploy updates daily and leverage Google App Engine’s ability to simultaneously serve traffic from multiple versions to test new features with a few customers before releasing them to everyone. This helps ensure that our customers have the best experience possible each time they log in to Wdesk. Check out the video below to learn more about how we’re using Cloud Platform.

In our product space, the data-in-motion architecture we’ve chosen is what sets us apart. It requires:

1. Dynamically scalable application servers to handle variable traffic patterns
2. Replicated storage that’s scalable and provides reliable performance under load
3. Enterprise-grade reliability to ensure 24 x 7 access for our customers

We love learning about how our customers innovate with Wdesk inside their own companies, and are constantly impressed by the solutions they produce. The possibilities seem endless.

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How much money have you saved by using Google Apps for Education?
We’ve saved more than $784,000 over six years. Those are dollars that would been listed directly in the budget. That number doesn’t even include productivity or factor in that Google Apps for Education is a better tool than anything else out there. The key differentiation between Google and the others is how easy it is to collaborate and share in the same space. There are projects we’ve done here where people say “we just couldn’t have done this without the Google tools.” People routinely say “throw that on a site” or “put a calendar invite together.” The way the whole team works with the tools — it’s so seamless it’s scary, in a good way.

How important is security to you? How does that play into your use of Google Apps for Education?
Extremely important. I’m also realistic about my resources and my team’s resources compared to Google. Google has proven that they’re a secure company. They provide the same level of security that they use to protect their own data. I don’t know of any school district that has passed the same rigor of security testings that Google has. I might have a few people on my staff who are experts in Internet security and privacy, but Google has hundreds. There is no way that I can drum up the man hours within my walls to spend on security as Google has in their own walls. So, to me it’s much safer with Google in the long run, especially since the data is in the cloud and not sitting on someone’s laptop on their desk or on a USB drive.

Has Google Apps for Education been helpful from the perspective of disaster recovery and regulatory compliance?
We’re not concerned with disaster recovery because there is continuous backup. We’ve seen more of a benefit from regulatory compliance with legal review and discovery. The biggest thing is the knowledge that there is no losing data — you know it is going to be there. You know that if a lawyer or state’s attorney comes knocking on your door, you can open the Google Apps interface and find it. There’s no fear you will have to produce something that has been lost. The more stuff our teachers put into Google Drive the better things are for regulatory compliance and legal discovery for us.

When it comes to using a service that’s purely cloud-based, what are the benefits?
No matter what happens within our walls, the Google tools are available when the Web is available. A couple of years ago we lost all power for three days at the main data center that provided Internet to our schools. We called the Internet service provider and they said, “Well, we’d love to help you out, but the switches that feed your school are under four feet of water now.” While that was going on, we were working offsite and our Gmail there was fine. If we were hosting email on premise we would have been dark. The last thing you want is to be cut off from the rest of the world and being in the cloud prevented that from happening.

What was the biggest concern when you first moved to Google, and how has it since been addressed?
The top concern was that the price was too good to be true. People worried there would be a bait and switch. I know Google Apps for Education won’t start charging because the public pressure would be daunting if Google did that. I take comfort in that.

The other thing that makes me confident in Google is their program Google Takeout. Google constantly gives me tools to move information into the the system, but it’s also easy to take it back out if I were ever to want to leave. Other companies have not been that forthright.

How is the support for Google Apps for Education?
Google support is as good or better than support for any product I pay for. It’s rare that I have to use support, but when I do I typically get an email response back within hours. On the rare occasions when I do need help, I can send an email or make a quick phone call and, either way, we get help immediately.

(Cross-posted on the Official Google Blog.)

Every year, phones and tablets get better, and more of you are starting to use your mobile devices not just to view, but also to create and edit content. And while the Drive app is a convenient place to store your stuff, we want to make it easier for you to quickly find, edit and create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the go. Starting today, you can download new, standalone mobile apps for Docs and Sheets—with Slides coming soon. Need to find a spreadsheet? Go to the Sheets app. Need to create a document? Go to the Docs app. They’re all right there at your fingertips.

When you open the new apps, you’ll see your most recently edited files, which means less time searching and scrolling.

The apps also come with offline support built in, so you can easily view, edit and create files without an Internet connection. Now, if you have a brilliant idea for a best-selling novel while traipsing through the Amazonian rainforest (or you know, something more probable, like during flight takeoff)…no problem. You can jot down your idea in the Docs app on your phone, even when you’re offline.

You can get the apps on Google Play [Docs] [Sheets] and in the App Store [Docs] [Sheets]. If you don’t have time now, over the next few days you’ll be prompted to download the apps when you go to edit or create a document or spreadsheet in your Drive app. And of course, you’ll still be able to use the Drive app to view and organize all of your documents, spreadsheets, presentations, photos and more.

So enjoy the Amazon—we’re looking forward to buying that novel someday. And in the meantime, just remember: even if a crocodile eats your phone, your files are safe in the cloud!

Today more than 30 million students, teachers and administrators globally rely on Google Apps for Education. Earning and keeping their trust drives our business forward. We know that trust is earned through protecting their privacy and providing the best security measures.

This is why, from day one, we turned off ads by default in Apps for Education services. Last year, we removed ads from Google Search for signed-in K-12 users altogether. So, if you’re a student logging in to your Apps for Education account at school or at home, when you navigate to Google.com, you will not see ads.

Of course, good privacy requires strong security. We have more than 400 full-time engineers — the world’s foremost experts in security — working to protect your information. We always use an encrypted HTTPS connection when you check or send email in Gmail, which means no one can listen in on your messages as they go back and forth between your laptop, phone or tablet and Gmail’s servers — even if you’re using public WiFi.

Today, we’re taking additional steps to enhance the educational experience for Apps for Education customers:

• We’ve permanently removed the “enable/disable” toggle for ads in the Apps for Education Administrator console. This means ads in Apps for Education services are turned off and administrators no longer have the option or ability to turn ads in these services on.
• We’ve permanently removed all ads scanning in Gmail for Apps for Education, which means Google cannot collect or use student data in Apps for Education services for advertising purposes.

Users who have chosen to show AdSense ads on their Google Sites will still have the ability to display those existing ads on their websites. However, it will no longer be possible to edit or add new AdSense ads to existing sites or to new pages.

We’re also making similar changes for all our Google Apps customers, including Business, Government and for legacy users of the free version, and we’ll provide an update when the rollout is complete.

On Thursday, May 1 at 9:00 am PT, we’ll be hosting a Hangout on Air on our Google for Education G+ page with myself; Jonathan Rochelle, Director of Product Management for Docs and Drive and Hank Thiele, Chief Technology Officer for District 207 in Park Ridge, IL who uses Google Apps. We’ll be discussing these changes and answering your questions. We look forward to hearing from you.

For more information about student privacy in Google Apps for Education, please visit our website.

Google Apps for Business, Education and Government

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