Pros & Cons

Some important things to know about Google Apps for Education:

  • PRO: All of the Google Apps for Ed are cloud-based - they can be accessed from any device (computer, tablet, phone) that has Internet capability, so your files and settings can be available to you anywhere, any time.
  • BE AWARE: Although Gmail and Docs have offline capability, they only sync after your internet connection is restored; and other apps will be unavailable if there is no internet connection.
  • PRO: Google updates its services on a fairly regular basis (once a year or so).
  • BE AWARE: These updates happen without warning, usually, and might move buttons or add functions - if a button or menu suddenly seems different, you're not crazy!
  • PRO: You can upload your Microsoft files from your computer and have them converted to easy-to-share Docs format.
  • BE AWARE: Converted documents often have their formatting messed up - the content will stay the same, but they might look ugly. It's probably worth the investment of time to fix the formatting or re-create the file in Docs.
  • PRO: Google Docs files and Gmail messages with Docs attachments do not count toward your Drive or Gmail size limits.
  • BE AWARE: There are size limits on your Drive and Gmail accounts (25 GB total between them), and Gmail attachments that are non-Google files are also size-limited to 25 MB (which is avoided if you share a Google Docs file instead of some other type of file).
  • PRO: If you have (or if someone shares with you) a Microsoft Word or Excel file, you will be able to view it in Drive; and you will be offered the ability to "enable editing", which converts the file to a Google Docs format for you.
  • BE AWARE: Extremely large files (Excel workbooks/sheets with thousands of cells, Word documents with hundreds of pages) may fail to upload and/or convert to Docs.
  • PRO: Google tries to make its services "platform agnostic" - they strive to make Google applications available for all devices and operating systems.
  • BE AWARE: Apple and Microsoft don't like Google much; their browsers (Safari, Internet Explorer) and devices (iPhone, iPad, Windows phone) don't always work super-well with Google applications.