This week, Google officials were in San Diego meeting with thousands
of educators and administrators at the International Society for
Technology in Education (
ISTE) conference.
Vidya Nagarajan, Google's Product Manager of Chromebooks for Education, has an interesting report
up from the conference with some data that may come as a big surprise
to those who think Apple has a stranglehold on the market for computers
in schools. Specifically, Nagarajan reports that there are more than 500 school districts in the U.S. and Europe actively using Chrome OS-based
Chromebooks, and more are signing on at a fast clip.
In
addition to the 500 school districts in the U.S. and Europe using
Chromebooks, Google announced this week that more are signing on,
including Rockingham Country Schools, N.C., Transylvania County
Schools, N.C., and Fond du Lac School District, Wis.
Nagarajan also writes that
Leyden High School District from Illinois is rolling out Chromebooks to
its 3,500 students, and here some of the apps the students will use:
WeVideo,
EasyBib,
Vernier Labquest2,
SlideRocket,
Geogebra and
Pearson’s OpenClass. Who knew about these?
At
this week's conference, Google is also rolling out some new features
for schools using Chromebooks that purportedly make it easy to find,
use, install and manage web apps for an entire school. These include the
following, according to Google's report:
- Grade-level application packs
are groups of Chrome Web Store apps that integrate tightly with
Google’s suite of Apps for Education, divided by grade levels to meet
different classroom needs. These packs are installable from the
Chromebook management console. Many of them are free and we’ve worked
with the app makers to offer discounts for bulk purchases.
- Organization-specific web app collections
in the Chrome Web Store give administrators the ability to recommend
apps to students, teachers and staff. The collection is visible only to
the school, and admins can curate apps from the Chrome Web Store,
application packs and web apps purchased elsewhere or private apps
developed by the school. (This feature is also available to Chromebooks
for Business customers from the control panel.)
Apple,
of course, still has overwhelming market share in schools. However, if
Google can offer compelling free applications, bundles, incentives and
low costs for Chromebooks, they could gain further traction in schools.
