Google is Making some big changes to the way they offer their products to Educational users, students, teachers, and schools.
The G Suite for Education branding is gone and they are now naming the suite of apps we know and love Google Workspace for Education.
On top of that we will see the introduction of different tiers! 1 free and 3 Paid Upgrades, each with their own feature set which is being expanded frequently.
In the video below I go over these changes and give you an overview of what the changes mean for you and your school. In addition to that, you can find a calculator in this post to easily find out what these changes would mean for your school’s budget as paid tiers are introduced.
If you prefer to read about the key changes, scroll down for more information.
Name change
The biggest visible change to G Suite for Education is the name change. Google is changing the G Suite for Education branding to Google Workspace for education. This is in line with their Enterprise and Business offerings where the same Workspace branding is used.
Free offering
To the contrary of what some people think, or are talking about online, Google is dedicated to continued support for schools through its free offering of Workspace for education. However, there will be some changes to storage and the available feature set in the future will be larger for premium editions. But more on that later!
For now the G suite for Education essential features are being transferred to the Google Workspace for education Fundamentals plans, and current G Suite for Education Enterprise users are going to have the same features in the new Education Plus tier(See more info down below).
Premium versions of Workspace for education
Starting in April 2021 there will be four edition of Workspace for Education:
- Education Fundamentals: Free suite formally known as G Suite for Education.
- (NEW)Education Standard: Paid Tier – Enhanced security features (Admin focused)
- (NEW)Teaching and Learning Upgrade: Paid tier – Enhanced instructional impact with additional features for apps such as Meet, Classroom and others. (Teacher focusses)
- Education Plus – Paid Tier (Formally know as G Suite for Education Enterprise) Combines both the Teaching and Learning upgrade features as well as the Education standard features.
All these tiers are discussed in depth on the official Google Workspace for Education website. The main takeaway here is that the feature set each school requires will be different and the upgrading of these editions will depend on your individual school situation, as well as the budgeting of your school.
In regards to cost, the offered plans are very competitively priced and on par or below similar offerings from other companies. If I’m very honest, yes, Google Workspace is still lacking behind in many features when comparing it with the likes of Office365. However, if they have shown us one thing in the past few weeks its their commitment to developing these premium tiers with teacher specific features.
If you would like to calculate what this cost would mean for your specific situation and staff/student numbers, AppsEvents has kindly shared the following calculator you can use: Calculator.
Let’s talk storage!
Yes, the rumors are true. Unlimited storage is going away and is being replaced with Limited and/or pooled storage!
Pooled storage means the storage is shared between every user on that domain and thus this will definitely impact you, even more so if the majority of your files are stored on Drive. The best way to find out just how much this will impact you is to check with the Google Workspace for Education Admin. The admin console give you access to all the features you need to see how much storage is being used, how this is being used and which users are using the most. But that is an entirely different Blog post!
So how much storage do I get to keep? Well, it depends on the edition.
Education Fundamentals: 100 TB pooled cloud storage
Education Standard: 100 TB pooled cloud storage
Teaching and Learning Upgrade: 100 TB shared + 100 GB per license
Education Plus: 100 TB shared + 20 GB per license
ADMINS: For more information on how to manage your domain storage better, why not read this post: Manage your Google Workspace Storage.
What about personal Google Accounts?
I often get the question; “How much storage do I get with a Google account?”
At the moment no changes here have been announced. You are still getting the initial 15GB of storage free, and access to the Core Apps of Google Workspace.
Do keep in mind that your Drive, Google Photos and Gmail all count toward this maximum storage limit. As the prior unlimited storage for Google photos is no longer available.
When you upgrade to Google One, which I personally use for myself and my family, your total storage increases to 100 GB or more depending on the plan you choose. You also get extra member benefits and access to support from Google experts – all of which you can share with your family.
I will write a follow up blog on the Google One benefits in the future and share more about these benefits.
Administrators
NOTE to administrators and school leaders: Read more about how you can check your domain in the Admin Console and find out how much storage is being used and which users are using the most. This is a great way to prepare for possible cost or to see how storage changes might affect your school: Admin Blog post on Storage