Google in Education and Chromebooks (Sept 2011)

By Wesley Fryer On September 27, 2011 · Tagged With: gti2011 · 4 Comments

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These are my notes from Tia Lendo’s presentation at the September 27, 2011, Google Geo-Teacher Institute in Lewiston, Maine. MY THOUGHTS AND COMMENTS ARE IN ALL CAPS. Tia’s conference bio is:

Tia Lendo is a “Noogler,” having joined Google two months ago. Prior to coming to Google she was a 4th grade teacher and then helped to start an education non-profit called Teach First in London. She also spent time consulting in education and healthcare. She attended the University of North Carolina and is a proud Tarheel who is looking forward to college basketball season! She attended Stanford to study Education & Business which means she also gets to be excited for college football season too She is looking forward to learning from everyone in Maine.

14 million education users now for Google Apps for education, in 145 different countries!

If you’ve used the Chrome browser, you’ve basically used a Chromebook.

Search Education Evangelism site from Google: We didn’t learn Internet search skills in school, we need to learn them now, however!

Google+ currently requires people be 18 years or older

Hangouts with Extras in Google+ now let us share docs and more (not sure when this will become available in Google Apps for Education)

Google App Inventor: Available to make Android apps (free)

Google Science Fair

2011 Google Science Fair video

Google RISE Awards

Google RISE – Roots in Science and Engineering – Awards are designed to promote and support Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) and Computer Science (CS) education initiatives. We provide awards to organizations working with K-12 (primary & secondary schools) and university students to provide enrichment programs in these fields.

Why Google Chromebooks?

Today on the web you can do so much
Why isn’t 1:1 technology permeating classrooms: budget, management, scalability are all big issues

Chromebooks for Education video

A few things to point out
- battery life 8 hours
- boot up fully in 8 seconds
- more productive technology: “technology that just works”
- easy to manage: cloud-based management and updates
- easy to support: simple tools reduce support calls
- simpler to scale: put more computers in the classroom

Chromebook Thomas Jefferson (Council Bluffs, Iowa)

Technorati Tags: education, google, laptop, chromebook, laptops

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On this day..

Tagged with → gti2011

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http://ag4it.myopenid.com/ Adam

You raise interesting points about the benefits of the Chromebook for education. However some institutions will still require access to Windows applications. In order to extend the benefits of Chromebooks schools will need to provide quick and easy browser-based access to these Windows applications and also to virtual desktops. Ericom AccessNow provides this support and enables Chromebook users to connect to Terminal Servers, physical desktops or VDI virtual desktops – and run Windows applications and desktops within a browser window, without having to install anything on the user device.

Here’s an example of a large school district that is using Ericom AccessNow to provide 30,000 students and staff access to Windows applications from Chromebooks, iPads and other devices:
http://www.ericom.com/pr/pr_111206.asp?URL_ID=708

Ericom also offers special pricing for education customers.

For more info, and to download a demo, visit:
http://www.ericom.com/html5_RDP_Chromebook.asp?URL_ID=708

Note: I work for Ericom
http://wfryer.wpengine.com Wesley Fryer

Here’s the problem with your statement: “Some institutions will still require access to Windows applications.” Institutions which embrace Chromebooks will also fully embrace cloud-based applications and dump client-based apps for those computers.

Some computers can be available / used for client-side apps, but since an increasing number of computing / information tasks today can be done “in the cloud” fewer client-side apps are needed.