Google Talk is a basic instant messaging program and can be used as part of Google Apps for Education. My Google Apps (GApps) users can sign in using their accounts and, as I had just had a request for an instant messaging system for the staff I thought this was a great thing.
Well it is, but as always there's a 'gotcha'.... The problem is that we don't really want instant messaging for the students. Easy you say, just don't install Google Talk on the student machines? Well yes, that does help. However, in their wisdom, Google decided to build the 'chat' feature into Gmail, and I am rolling out Gmail to all of my users. So the students bring up a browser, login to Gmail and they are automatically (gggrr) logged in to an instant messaging program within a browser! Searching the Google help forums I have been staggered to find that you can only disable chat/google talk at the domain level, so it's either on or off for everyone. If I disable it the students can't use the chat feature built in to Gmail (which is a good thing obviously...) but the staff can't use instant messaging.
After discussing with the staff we have decided that IM is too important a tool not to have for staff, and that the Google route is the obvious way to go. So we are sticking with leaving chat on, and putting the emphasis on the teachers to monitor usage in class, and try to educate the students about the appropriate time to be using things. It's been really interesting as what started out as a simple technical problem has lead on to discussions around a whole bigger issue of whether in these days of collaboration and communication, we should even be trying to restrict access to stuff anyway. I can see that the traditional role of the Network Manager is changing and even though I have always seen myself as an 'enabler' rather than a 'disabler' it is still a challenging time trying to find the right balance between giving students access to the tools that they need and use, but trying to ensure that they are used appropriately.....
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