Google Apps Exploding in Higher Ed & Chromebook Usage Inching Upwards
Two products we have become heavily invested in, both in customer demand and personal satisfaction regards, are Google Apps and the Chromebook laptops. Both products can most definitely be used separately of eachother to much positive effect. But together they happen to be an unstoppable force in providing an effective means as a classroom tool for providing quality instruction and a 21st century learning environment for students that are looking to become “netizens” of the current generation of citizens.
Some interesting news has come out of Google surrounding the increasing reach of both products. First and foremost, Google Apps has hit a truly stellar achievement: 61 of the top 100 Universities on the US News & World Report list of the best higher education institutions are officially using Google Apps. Google is even so proud of the news that they created a small page dedicated to a scattering of success stories from the various campuses of the 61 schools. Just a few of the big names on this list include Yale, Northwestern, University of Notre Dame, Rutgers, and many others. You can view a nice map outlining all of the higher ed institutions using Apps today on this neat page which overlays Google Maps.
On the K-12 front, Google is also making solid growth in a sector FireLogic has been steadily supporting with direct assistance over the past year. Google Chromebooks are continuing their expansion into the middle school and high school classroom, and Google’s large presence at the FETC this year allowed them to expound on how far they have come with these intriguing devices. Our company helped one school district make the pivotal move to Chromebooks just last month in Buffalo, MO but there are many more making similar decisions on whether iPads or Chromebooks (or Kindles?) are the way to go for their 1:1 initiatives. We’ve been able to put our hands on many of the devices and still believe that Chromebooks are the best fit for providing a steady path for learning a traditional platform of computing while utilizing the power of the 21st century cloud product Google Apps.
Close to home, Google announced that Leyden High School District in Illinois is moving 3,500 students across two high schools to Chromebooks. Beyond that, Council Bluffs Community School District in Iowa is purchasing 2,000 Chromebooks for two high schools’ worth of students and 1,500 Chromebooks for students in their two middle schools. Richland School District Two in South Carolina happens to be moving a whopping 19,000 students to Chromebooks in the near future. That’s a LOT of kids getting Chromebooks!
Any way you look at it, Google Apps for Education and Chromebooks are becoming a larger staple in the educational community and for good reason. They make it easy to administer student learning and provide a common platform for expansive learning in the 21st century.
If you’re curious how either of these products can help your school district, feel free to contact us today and we can help plan out a potential migration to one or both of these exciting platforms for learning.