Dive Brief:
- Starting Thursday, Google Play for Education will be available on Chromebooks.
- In the past, teachers and schools wanting to use the program had to do so through tablets, but they are now able to deliver Android apps, books, and educational YouTube videos via a single website.
- Google says that 10,000 schools are currently using Chromebooks, with or without tablets.
Dive Insight:
Just like the tablet version of Google Play for Education, this new Chrome OS version will allow users to access Google's bookstore and rent or buy books for students, with prices starting as low as $1 per student for 60 days of access.
It's clear that the team behind Google Play for Education is doing everything it can to accommodate the growing needs of classrooms while also making its offerings more competitive with Apple's rival iPad and App Store. Earlier this month, it announced that Google Play for Education tablets would allow multiple users. This move was meant to ease costs and acknowledge the somewhat unrealistic expectation of 1:1 technology integration — at least for the time being.
The decision to create a Chrome OS version of the portal also came from listening to the needs of teachers and schools, many of who requested non-tablet access.
As Rick Borovoy, Google’s product manager for Google Play for Education, told Tech Crunch, "Our goal is to find the pain points and untapped opportunities." Ultimately Borovoy said the addition of Google Play for Education is a benefit for districts because, "schools don’t have to think device first."
