Thursday, January 30, 2014

It is time to look for an alternatives to the Mobile Ipad Craze and to look to Google for the next revelation in education!

It is time to look for an alternatives to the Mobile Ipad Craze. There is a new player in town and he is here to stay. In just the last two weeks there has been article after article released about the ChromeBook. At the MACUL conference I went to a session on iPad vs Chromebook and every day after I went to this session. Google has gained more traction. For both My sons birthday I bought them Nexus tablets. You can not pry these devices from there fingers. They have became a appendage to them. Today is just one more of those moments of reflection after reading this commentary from Kevin Hogan in a trade magazine. iPad and apple is in for a battle with a big contender. Also Microsoft my want to look over there shoulder also as the upstart that Google created is becoming a disruptive innovation that will displace both in the changing world of education.

Kevin Hogan wrote "In my decidedly non-scientific survey of classroom device adoption, a.k.a. my news alerts, it seems that the iPad may be in peril as the favorite district implementation of 2014. Maybe I should switch search engines for research, but Google Chromebooks seem to be making a Play (all puns intended). Google Play for Education this week announced a new aspect of their content distribution strategy—digital books. Following the teacher friendly "pick-your-own" app and video announcements last fall, the company has partnered with several publishers, including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Harper Collins, Penguin, and Random House, to offer a virtual library service. Students are lent access to digital books for a set period of days during the course of the semester through a reader app—you can play with it here. When the course is over, the books evaporate. Forget about the devices for a minute and look squarely at the software platform underneath. Google attempts to create enterprise-level systems created specifically for education at both a district and classroom level is intriguing and should give pause to knee-jerk iPad purchases."

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