Google Ending Play for Education App

Google Play for Education, created in 2013, allowed college students to buy or rent textbooks with the flexibility to read the content on a mobile device. In the K-12 world, it was an app designed for the classroom organized by subject and grade that came at a reasonable cost.

Even though Google intends to continue supporting the service, it will stop selling licenses for the app on March 14. The app was only available to a limited number of tablets, but the company plans to continue making educational apps that work on all Android tablets available in the Google Play Store.

Play for Education was launched to promote Android tablets in schools. Since Google’s Chromebook has become the device of choice for many districts, the new focus could be on changes to the operating system that would provide even more classroom tools, according to Kristin Decarr in an article for Education News.

“While nothing official has been said about why the company decided to do away with Play for Education, an unnamed Google partner executive believes the reason to include capability issues, such as the limited number of student profiles that can be put onto a single device, in addition to competition from Apple’s iPad,” Decarr wrote.

Chromebooks Become the Tool of Choice

The Apple iPad may still be a trendy option, but with 2.5 million shipped to schools in the first six months of 2015, the Google Chromebook has become the tool of choice for many. There are several reasons Chromebook has become such a steady performer, according to Stephen Noonoo of eSchool News.

Noonoo discussed the device during an episode of Education Talk Radio. Part of the Chromebook story is that Google is a brand to which even Apple users turn. Students are comfortable with the Google Apps for Education and use them in class regularly.

It doesn’t hurt that the Chromebook is less expensive than other devices, such as the iPad, and replacement parts are cheaper to obtain. Cost and dependability make it a safe choice for schools. In addition, there are plenty of easily accessible training and professional development tools available for the Chromebook.

“Whereas some devices get bogged down and begin to crawl after years of downloading and heavy use (and others feel less useful thanks to planned obsolescence), Chromebooks are capable of lasting for years without much noticeable change,” Noonoo wrote.

EPIC 2020: A Bleak Future for Higher Ed

William Sams, recently appointed interim associate provost for information technology and chief information officer at Ohio University, has a rather dark view of the future of higher education.

In his world, campuses will be reserved for the ultra-wealthy or athletically gifted because most college degrees will have been replaced by badges earned through free online courses. In addition, Apple will buy Amazon to become a learning resource giant, Google will deliver free online classes called Evolving Personal Information Construct (EPIC) where students can earn those badges, and all of it will happen by 2020. Sams presented his observations in a web video called EPIC 2020 (embedded below).

“It’s not my sole objective to be right or wrong here, but to get people talking about things that need to be discussed,” Sams told eCampus News. “All of us are trapped in the paradigm of how things have been, the system we’ve existed in all our lives. A lot of [educators] have a worldview that makes it impossible for them to even see solutions to problems that exist today.”

In the video, Sams predicts Congress will eliminate Pell Grants next year, students will demand colleges only charge for learning assessment, and new funding will go to free online learning platforms to fill the void left by the disruption of traditional higher education. In addition, Apple buys Amazon to create the world’s largest content-distribution site, called Applezon.

“I see some of those things happening,” Martin Van Der Werf, a blogger for The College of 2020 ed-tech site, told eCampus News. “They won’t replace higher ed altogether, but serve some pockets of higher ed. The video is almost a work of science fiction, and the value in sci-fi is that it helps you image worlds that don’t exist yet. Sci-fi stories draw plausible scenarios that make you think of what is possible, and that’s why this video might be valuable.”

One of Sams’ projections is already starting to come to fruition. On July 10, Google launched its first free online class, called Power Searching with Google. Students will use Google+ groups to discuss class materials and will earn a certificate when they finish the course.

Six million students use Google Apps Education Edition

As universities and colleges seek to find ways to cut costs, many are turning to Google for their free e-mail services. Google recently reported that as of September, “over five million students at thousands of schools in more than 145 countries” were using its suite of communication and collaboration applications known as Google Apps Education Edition. According to a posting on the Google blog, this number has increased 400% since the fall of 2008. Google recently launched a new website to show the schools how the products work which now shows that another million students have signed on for a current total of six million students.

An article from the Minneapolis – St. Paul Star Tribune discusses the transition to the Google services and the concern it has caused for many college administrators. Administrators are worried about how well sensitive information will be protected by an outside company but Google promises that the information is secure. According to Jaime Casap, a business development manager for Google Apps Education, “When somebody sends an e-mail out, it’s broke up into a gazillion pieces and spread across a bunch of different servers. Their data is absolutely secure.” Jerry Sanders, chief information officer at Macalester College pointed out that when there is a server room on campus “there’s an illusion of control. But there are so many ways through any given system. The question became, who can really protect this better: Google, with its army of engineers? Or us calling our guys in the middle of the night to hurry down?”