Note 1: This post is not meant to draw a value judgment on the usefulness of any of these technologies (yet). I am merely trying to summarize the situation as I currently see it
Note 2: All students in my son's 7th grade class have just received iPads. All the students in his high school already have received iPads. Also, I was at a teacher's meeting recently and a teacher from Ithaca High School told us that all students at his high school have just received Chromebooks.
Three mammoth players in the computer world are currently engaging in a giant battle to position themselves as the dominant player in the enormous education market. Apple was the early leader in terms of infiltration into the classroom around 2010 with the development of their iPad. The idea was that the iPad would replace the traditional textbook. As described by Apple itself, iPads would be more portable, durable, interactive, searchable, and current than the traditional text. Very quickly, schools hopped on board with massive investments to put the Ipad in the classroom. A 2011 NY Times Article describes a common occurrence: "As part of a pilot program, Roslyn High School on Long Island handed out 47 iPads on Dec. 20 to the students and teachers in two humanities classes. The school district hopes to provide iPads eventually to all 1,100 of its students". In 2012, Apple dove in deeper. As reported in Venturebeat, "Apple announced iBooks 2, an updated iPhone and iPad app that will offer highly interactive electronic textbooks, as well as a new textbook section in the iBookstore. The company also showed off a new version of iTunes U, which gives teachers the ability to do much more than create lectures for download". According to Apple, "...iTunes U, (is) a service that lets students download lectures and other materials from iTunes. Cue says Apple has seen over 700 million downloads from iTunes U, and that it has mostly been used for"over 20,000 education apps for the iPad". According to Apple, there are currently "1.5 million iPads being used in education".
So, it is no surprise that Google and Microsoft are also interested the education market. From my own perspective, both of these other giants have really made inroads within the past two years, but even more so within the past one year (especially Google). They have taken a different tact than Apple, however. Both have put their efforts into more of a Cloud based approach (which makes sense, especially for Google). Google struck first with the development of the Chromebook in 2011. This is a laptop which operates exclusively in the Cloud through the Google Chrome operating system. It is currently available for around $200 (less than half the price of an iPad Air 2). Whereas iPads are meant to be dedicated to a single student who downloads all his own apps and textbooks, the Chromebook can be kept in a single classroom, and students from each class can sign on through their Google accounts. Therefore, the teacher can use the same class set of machines throughout the day for all his classes. Because they are not bogged down with a lot of programs, Chromebooks boot up incredibly quickly. Also, since everything is on the Cloud, students can access their materials from any computer. Google has also developed a large assortment of their own apps for education. The whole "apps" thing was one major reason that iPads had the most early success penetrating into the classroom. Google couldn't originally match all the iPad apps, That is now beginning to change. Currently, public schools can become "Google Schools" and use all the "Google Apps for Education". As a teacher, I can set up my own "Google Classroom" using my Google (gmail) account on my "Google Drive". According to Wikipedia, there were 400,000 Chromebooks sold in 2012, which jumped to 1.76 million by 2013, According to other sources, there were 5.2 million Chromebooks sold in 2014. As of September, 2014 Google claims that 30 million students and teachers are using Google Apps for education.
Microsoft has jumped into the fray with its Chromebook alternative, the Stream 13. It runs Windows 8.1, and comes in at around $200. They are doing this because, according to Computer World, , Apple and Google have eaten into "...Windows PC sales, which dropped about 6%, slipping from a 72.3% share in 2013 to 68.4% in 2014." If they buy a Stream 13, the general public gets one free year of Office 365 (a subscription based version of Microsoft Office 2013). Schools and students, however, get unlimited use of Office 365. With the Stream 13 and Office 365, Microsoft is hoping to capitalize on some of Chromebook's weaknesses. Chromebooks operate almost completely online, while the Stream 13 is a "software plus" machine, which combines Cloud capabilities (cloud storage on OneDrive) with locally running software. One advantage of this is that the number of apps available is greater than the Chromebooks can currently offer. Also, with the Stream, you can work offline. One of the common complaints I've heard about the Stream, however, is that the processing power that comes with a $200 price tag means that it gets bogged down if pushed very hard. Also, according a reviewer at laptopmag.com, a Chromebook boots up in 7-8 seconds while a Stream can take over 30 seconds. This may not seem like much, but (in my opinion) if a teacher wants to use one of these devices during the middle of a class, that time difference can be significant. One feature I currently use on my desktop version of Office 365 is OneNote, which is more of a free form note taking app. I find it useful in presenting information and notes to my classes.
I wonder if what we are seeing is a replay of the SONY versus Betamax battle at the beginning of the home video player revolution?
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