“Google’s Chromebooks have overtaken Apple products as the most popular devices in American classrooms, but Apple CEO Tim Cook says the company will not be following the search giant’s approach to the education market, which has been a stronghold for Apple since the early days of the Mac,” Molly Hensley-Clancy reports for BuzzFeed News. “‘Assessments don’t create learning,’ Cook said in an interview with BuzzFeed News Wednesday, calling the cheap laptops that have proliferated through American classrooms mere ‘test machines.’ ‘We are interested in helping students learn and teachers teach, but tests, no,’ Cook said. ‘We create products that are whole solutions for people — that allow kids to learn how to create and engage on a different level.'”
Apple’s “education market share has been snatched away by the Google-branded Chromebooks, which are outselling not just Apple but everyone else in the tech business. By the end of 2015, according to Google, there will be more Chromebooks in schools than all other devices combined,” Hensley-Clancy reports. “Cook’s comments hint at one major reason for the rapid rise of the Chromebook: the computerization of standardized testing. With many states in the process of shifting their annual tests to computers and away from bubble sheets, school districts needed to buy devices quickly, cheaply, and in large numbers — enough to accommodate whole swaths of the school at once during testing weeks. Keyboards, when it comes to tests, are an absolute necessity.”
“Testing alone does not explain the surge in popularity of Chromebooks, which had just a 1% share of the education market in 2012. They are less than half as expensive as iPads,” ” Hensley-Clancy reports. “Cook said iPads are set apart from the competition by their education-focused native apps and integration with school curriculum. Chromebooks run all their software through a web browser, requiring a virtually constant internet connection and limiting the ability to use custom-made software or apps.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: As has been proven many times over, the best product very rarely leads in market share. Smart, quality schools equip their students with Apple iPads. Testing mills only have Chromebooks.
In a job interview, always ask candidates what types of technologies they used not just in college, but in grade, middle, and high school. Their answers will help you to weed out the rote memorizers while revealing the rarer critical thinkers. That one question will lead you to the right hiring decisions more often than not.
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Google’s Eric Schmidt spurns Obama cabinet post offer – December 11, 2012
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Google CEO Schmidt: If you don’t like being in Google Street View then ‘just move’ – October 28, 2010
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Google CEO Schmidt: Change your name to escape ‘cyber past’ – August 18, 2010
Wired: Google, CIA Invest in ‘future’ of Web monitoring – July 29, 2010
37 states join probe into Google’s questionable Wi-Fi data collection – July 22, 2010
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