Schola Europaea European School Brussels II

136
PANORAMA
EASY COMMUNICATION IN THE CLOUDS (2)
Google mail and Rainlendar
In 2005 one of the system managers set up
an eskar.org account at Google mail. Every
teacher in the school received a school
email address hisname@eskar.org, but in
fact all email is hosted by Google. Up till
then the email was hosted on the school
server. This approach used to create
a lot of problems. By outsourcing the
mail the system manager ended years of
frustration. Since then school email simply
worked. And because of that, teachers
actually started to use their school mail.
It has evolved since then into a major
communication channel. Users can access
their mail in school or at home, over their
internet browser or through their favourite
email program, like Outlook.
Google mail offers also its users a (video)
chat function. Chat can be very practical
for short communications if people are
on line at the same time. In the primary and
secondary school we set up some distance
learning projects with various schools
in Europe and our Google account was
a useful tool to set this up.
All email, which is addressed to the school
in general, is forwarded to every teacher.
So everybody is informed and with the
search function within Google mail one can
go back in time to find older information
easily.
During the current school year the school
will be taking the next step. We are going to
publish the school calendar online using the
Google calendar of the eskar.org domain.
The aim will be to make relevant information
more available for every staff member. For
improved accessibility every computer
in school will have a program, called
Rainlendar, which displays the Google
calendar on each desktop. (Figure 6)
When a teacher logs in, Rainlendar
automatically starts up. It then synchronises
with the Google calendar and shows the
upcoming events for the next two weeks.
The user can select the school calendars of
the primary school, the secondary school
and/or the calendar with dates of the
holidays.
For ordinary users this information is
“read only”. A few members of staff, like
the educational advisers, ICT coordinators
or secretaries, have the right to add
information. When desired, these users
open a new window by clicking on the
appropriate date (for example 25 th of
November). (Figure 7)
Figure 6 Rainlendar displays the school calendar
In this example the information is
entered: “Career counsellors year 5 (no
lessons)”. Next the time of the event is
submitted and the appropriate calendar
selected. Subsequently this new event is
synchronized over the EskarOS calendar
and Rainlendar is updated on every screen
in the school and at home. (Figure 8)
Of course this is a very efficient way to
keep every staff member of the school
community informed. At the same time, this
communication channel is not intrusive, it
is simply there if you want it. The user can
decide which calendars are of interest and
switch off the ones of lesser relevance. At
the same time, an educational counsellor