“My concern is that they are working on developing a profile of this child that, when they hit maturity, they are able to create a better profile,” said David Barsotti, an information technology project manager in the Chicago area whose daughter uses Google tools in elementary school. They warn that Google could profit by using personal details from their children’s school email to build more powerful marketing profiles of them as young adults. This month, for instance, Chatfield Senior High School in Littleton, Colo., sent out a notice urging seniors to “make sure” they convert their school account “to a personal Gmail account.” And not only does Google make it easy for those who have school Google accounts to upload their trove of school Gmail, Docs and other files to regular Google consumer accounts - but schools encourage them to do so. But by habituating students to its offerings at a young age, Google obtains something much more valuable.Įvery year, several million American students graduate from high school. Google makes $30 per device by selling management services for the millions of Chromebooks that ship to schools. Schools may be giving Google more than they are getting: generations of future customers. I don’t know why they are learning it.” He added, “And I don’t know why they can’t ask Google for the answer if the answer is right there.”
Referring to his own children, he said: “I cannot answer for them what they are going to do with the quadratic equation. The director of Google’s education apps group, Jonathan Rochelle, touched on that idea in a speech at an industry conference last year. “Google established itself as a fact in schools.” “Between the fall of 2012 and now, Google went from an interesting possibility to the dominant way that schools around the country” teach students to find information, create documents and turn them in, said Hal Friedlander, former chief information officer for the New York City Department of Education, the nation’s largest school district. Today they account for more than half the mobile devices shipped to schools. And Chromebooks, Google-powered laptops that initially struggled to find a purpose, are now a powerhouse in America’s schools. Today, more than half the nation’s primary- and secondary-school students - more than 30 million children - use Google education apps like Gmail and Docs, the company said.
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And it has outmaneuvered Apple and Microsoft with a powerful combination of low-cost laptops, called Chromebooks, and free classroom apps.
It has directly reached out to educators to test its products - effectively bypassing senior district officials. It has enlisted teachers and administrators to promote Google’s products to other schools. In the space of just five years, Google has helped upend the sales methods companies use to place their products in classrooms.