May 2015 | Prepared by Clarity Innovations The A-B-CsofK-12 Software Commissioned byIntelEducation,UserExperienceGroup HAS MORESPACING HAS LESSSPACING INSIDE LOGOMARK INSIDE LOGOMARK SMALLER SCALE LARGE SCALE 112/114/113 707271 424 5/154/135 43A89A 3282 95/96/98 54575A 425 For InternalTrainingOnly 132/161/196 84A1C4 659 109/190/189 6DBEBD 5493 236/220/152 ECDC98 461 INTEL EDUCATION SOFTWARE SOLUTIONS For Internal Training Only
Executive Summary
OUT OF GREAT CHALLENGE COMES GREAT OPPORTUNITY High fixed costs, limited access, differentiated learning styles, often inefficient infrastructures, and the questioned relevance of print content are just some of the challenges facing traditional education today. Technology, however, is poised to combat these issues head-on; bringing increased efficiency, increased access, lower costs, more personalized content, adaptive delivery, and more easily measurable outcomes. This marriage of education and technology has, unsurprisingly, created an enormous opportunity for large corporations and start-ups alike.
Flybridge Capital wrote of the investment potential in the education ecosystem, noting that the $1 trillion education market continues to be aggressively explored and attacked by entrepreneurs, with funding increasing substantially since Q1 2010.1
According to the report, the world’s 740 million students are using ed-tech products and services in five major categories, including: Aggregators and Vertical Search (companies that provide access to content); Content Providers (the creators and producers of educational content); 21st Century Skills and Comprehension (career advancement content and tools to help teach and learn); Textbook and Textbook Services (physical delivery products); and Devices (digital delivery products).2
Schools are using ed-tech products and services in two core areas: Back Office (staffing and professional assessment, finance, and learning management systems) and Front Office (recruiting and enrollment, online distribution, learning content and credentialing). Meanwhile, some 30 million teachers worldwide are purchasing ed-tech products and services in three core areas: Classroom Management and Administration; Student Analytics/Reporting; and Curriculum.
And not only is there need, there is the means: nearly 90% of the districts surveyed in MDR/EdNET Insight’s “State of the K-12 Market 2014” report “expect their 2014-2015 technology budgets in hardware, software, teacher training, and technical support to stay the same or increase.” One of four districts also expects their instructional budgets for math, English, science and social studies content to increase (up from 16% in the previous year).3
1 http://edtechtimes.com/2014/05/15/hack-frack-education/ 2 http://prezi.com/xguky7u7aur6/ed-tech-market-map/ 3 https://www.edsurge.com/n/2015-01-20-mdr-s-sunny-forecast-for-school-spending-budgets-in-2015
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BUSINESS MODELS ARE BOOMING For ed-tech solutions and product providers, this manifests into a number of possible business models, with each of them posing their own positives and challenges.
Selling to Schools (Positives: Large market size, large contract sizes, long-term commitments, and sticky customers. Challenges: Long, difficult sales cycle, users vs. customers, procurement process, and customized needs).
Direct to Consumer (Positives: No bureaucracy, easier sale, and the needs of the user and customer are aligned. Challenges: Smaller overall market size, lower price point = more customers, and retention).
Resellers or Channel Partners (Positives: Increased reach, large contract sizes, upfront payments, leveraging of existing relationships, and the bypassing of bureaucracy. Challenges: Revenue share, lower margins, limited feedback mechanisms, and little control over customer relationships/support).
Freemium: A model where a solution may be free to teachers and students, cost a little money for a department or school, and more money for an institution or district. (Positives: Less bureaucracy, users often become advocates, flexibility, and demonstration of traction. Negatives: Balance between free and premium, ambiguity as to whether free users can be converted, and time spent on non-paying customers).
ASSESSMENT ALSO PASSES THE TEST Data from the Software & Information Industry Association’s (SIIA) annual vendor survey shows that the PreK-12 testing and assessment market has grown 57% over the past three years. Sales of these products totaled almost $2.5 billion in 2012-13, making them “the largest single category of education technology sales,” according to the Executive Summary. Among the drivers of this growth is Common Core testing and increasing demand for better digital formative assessments.4
4 https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-12-02-prek-12-testing-and-assessment-market-nears-2-5-billion
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THERE’S NO PLACE LIKE CHROME One huge ed-tech success story is the phenomenal rise of Chromebooks. Schools that have successfully integrated Chromebooks into their classrooms tend to share that the devices fill three big needs: they’re easy for students and teachers to use, they’re easy to share, and they’re easy to manage. According to IDC’s latest report on tablets and laptops in K-12 education, Chromebooks are the best-selling device in the U.S. this year. And they’re continuing to grow in popularity — in districts like Montgomery County, MD (more than 50,000 devices), Charlotte-Mecklenberg, NC (32,000 devices) and Cherry Creek, CO (26,000 devices), who have all begun using Chromebooks in 2014.5
Google solutions such as Google Play for Education, Classroom and Google Apps for Education have similarly enjoyed a huge market uptick, with GAE, for instance, now being used by 40 million students and teachers around the world.
THE FUTURE OF THE FUTURE Even with these business models in place and strong market needs, there is still considerable unpredictability and volatility in the sector. These factors give large, established market players a considerable advantage over smaller companies. Their size, stability and market share will allow them to better weather fluctuations in the market, yet this could also undermine efforts to innovate in the long- term. Big players in ed-tech can afford to react quickly to the market, meaning, they don’t necessarily need to take the risks a smaller company might in anticipating the future of the education sector. This is probably why big companies are snatching up smaller ones at an unprecedented rate.
According to investment banking advisory firm Berkery Noyes, the number of education mergers and acquisitions deals in 2014 increased 9 percent from 2013 (from 298 to 325); the value of those deals, however, jumped 25 percent from $9.12 billion to $11.4 billion.
“The focus on education access, data analytics, and outcomes-driven technology products and services continues to shape the industry,” said Peter Yoon, Managing Director at Berkery Noyes.6
All this said, it seems that the key to providing relevant and innovative learning products and solutions lies in — ironically — learning itself: an unwavering focus and dedication to truly understand the needs of users, evolving accordingly (and anticipatively) then delivering with skill and precision.
5 http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2014/11/with-chromebooks-students-find-new-ways.html 6 https://www.edsurge.com/n/2015-01-27-berkery-noyes-2012-2014-education-m-as-worth-28-1-billion
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Education Software Solutions Matrix COMPANY SOLUTION(S) STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
Amazon E-books and their Extensive e-book library, E-readers not powerful Beginning to address Complex process for mass interactive features, affordability, management enough for classroom use, education market, needs ordering devices and Whispercast management software distribution of connected to address PD needs of difficulty of connecting software, Education App devices, apparent low schools, app development existing devices Store priority of education as devices become more market prevalent in schools
Amplify Classroom management Complete solution that Android market in US The solution is very Not a well-known tools, real-time assessment allows teachers to take has not caught on, comprehensive and company that started out tools, lesson planning control of their classroom unknown company having includes many features on the wrong foot with tools, curated app store, issues penetrating the that teachers want (eyes malfunctioning devices. MDM solution education market, early on teacher, app blocker). Their price point is higher issues damaged image of Ability to incorporate than many new Android company Google Apps for Education devices that come with and robust Android app Google Play for Education. store. Apple iBooks, iTunes U, iWorks, Strong brand awareness in Lack of multi-user sign in Apple brand loyalty There are many new GarageBand, iPhoto, education, many classroom ability, high price point, lower-cost devices on the iMovie, MDM framework, resources available highly publicized failure market that offer content, wireless device setup, through the App Store, in LAUSD after students education app stores and education app collections iTunes U and iBooks were able to bypass school MDM solutions. security settings Dell Dell Learning Platform; Collaboration Solutions Dell is over its head in Rather than develop its Intense competition in the Collaboration Solutions; and EDM solutions offer trying to provide an LMS own software, Dell is likely MDM space; hardware Education Data some added value for platform against strong to find more success with competitors offering better Management (EDM) schools. competition. bundling deals. software bundles.
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Education Software Solutions Matrix, Cont. COMPANY SOLUTION(S) STRENGTHS WEAKNESSES OPPORTUNITIES THREATS
Google Google Apps for Education; Affordability; Functionality; Privacy concerns; District International and Google’s reputation Google Play for Education; Boosting student filtering sometimes an emerging markets; for flightiness; Need to Chromebooks engagement; Functionality; issue; Sometimes clumsy Continue to create a maintain commitment to Flexibility user interfaces more seamless workflow education and educators; between offerings; Offline Risk over-diversifying tools. capabilities. HP Chromebooks: access to Variety of devices, Little innovation in Well-known in education Google management and affordability, bundling software markets, can continue to educational apps; Tablets: options, management build software and PD HP Classroom Manager, software, connection INCONCLUSIVE EVIDENCE free educational software to Common Core State Standards, PD options Lenovo ThinkPad; Windows 8 Apps Intense focus on education; Lack of non-device Continue to gain market Need to rise above the for Education; webNetwork Global perspective and solutions; Not known as share by going after noise; May be too late approach innovator in space smaller players like Dell; to game; Not known as Differentiate solutions and innovators. brand image.
Microsoft Office 365 including Office Large established device Attempting to be Increased opportunity for Success and popularity of and Office Online; and software market everything to everyone; reinventing brand with Google Apps for Education, share; Renewed focus on Overly diversified portfolio Windows 10; Challenge Chromebooks, and iPads Windows Store Apps; solutions for educators means less expertise in any Google with competitive Newer education one given area cloud office solutions applications Samsung Tablets: Samsung Variety of low-cost devices, Little innovation in School management; educational software, software Chromebooks: Android and bundles with other INCONCLUSIVE INCONCLUSIVE Google educational apps Samsung devices such as EVIDENCE EVIDENCE printers, easy provisioning of tablets
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Table of Contents
Executive Summary 2
Education Software Solutions Matrix 5
Amazon Education Solutions 8
Amplify Education Solutions 13
Apple Education Solutions 19
Dell Education Solutions 28
Google Education Solutions 32
HP Education Solutions 49
Lenovo Education Solutions 53
Microsoft Education Solutions 58
Samsung Education Solutions 66
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Amazon Education Solutions
Amazon Education Solutions
Amazon is beginning to make inroads into the educational technology field with its Kindle e-readers, tablets, and app. For some educators, these devices can be a low-cost way to integrate technology into their educational programs. However, the company hasn’t — as of yet — made the educational market one of its priorities in research, development and advertising: although there are indications that it may be heading in that general direction.
SOFTWARE The amount of educational software available for use with Kindle devices and the Kindle app is fairly robust and growing.
E-Book Features Amazon’s greatest resource is its vast collection of e-books: especially e-textbooks that can be accessed on Kindle devices as well as with the Kindle app on other mobile devices. A search in the Kindle store reveals almost 50,000 e-books classified as e-textbooks. Some e-textbooks are described as “print replica” versions to indicate that they look exactly like the print versions of those particular books. Some may not be downloaded to the Kindle E-Reader due to their file size or complexity.
Many e-textbooks available from Amazon are for undergraduate and graduate university students and can be bought for significantly less than comparable print publications. For example, Fundamentals of Physics: Mechanics, Relativity, and Thermodynamics is listed as $25.00 for the print version and $11.99 for the Kindle version. In addition, some textbooks can be rented although it isn’t clear what percentage of e-textbooks have this feature. Rented textbooks, typically, can be significantly less expensive than purchased ones. Campbell Biology, for instance, can be rented for $90.75 while the price for purchasing the book is $120.54. The period of time for which a book can be rented varies, and — in the case of this biology textbook — the publisher set the rental period of 180 days. The rental agreement allows users to add time to their rental day-by-day if they need to. These prices may be less of a bargain, however, when seen in light of the prices from other sellers ranging from $52.92 for a new print copy to $24.66 for a used copy.
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Amazon also has many free or low-cost e-textbooks, particularly for K-12 students. These books — such as the CK12 series — seem to be popular with home-school educators, based on the product reviews. Although these books may be adequate for an overview and useful in the context in which they were written, many are not appropriate for today’s classrooms, and few of them would be used in traditional elementary and secondary classrooms in the United States. For instance, Charles Beard’s History of the United States (available for $2.99) is a classic text though was written in 1921.
Amazon includes several software options that can enhance the reading experience of students using Kindle devices, some of which are especially useful for students and teachers.
Text-to-Speech This option allows users to choose to listen to a book instead of — or in addition to — reading it. Although digitally produced, the voice is fairly natural sounding, and audio controls are easy to access. This option is only available for Kindle Fire tablets.
X-Ray X-ray is a reference tool that allows users to get additional information about what they are reading without being connected to the Internet. Only available in books in English, the feature provides the following information:
• Links to pages and chapters • Descriptions of people and terms with links to where they are mentioned • Dictionary definitions • Ability to zoom in on images and tables. • Instant Translations — this feature requires a wireless Internet connection.
Word Wise Advertised as making it possible for users to read more challenging books, Word Wise inserts brief definitions of difficult words above the actual text. Readers use a slider to adjust the number of definitions they see as they read. This feature is only available in Kindle Voyage, Kindle Paperwhite, and 7th-Generation Kindle Fire tablets. This feature seems to be of dubious value in promoting good reading habits, however.
Note-taking All Kindle devices support note taking, annotating, and highlighting. The device must be connected to the Internet for notes to be saved. The Notebook app, available on Kindle Fire tablets and on the Kindle app for IOS and Android, also allows students to add images, bookmarks and to filter content for studying.
Although these features have potential for classroom use, they are not enabled in all e-books. Furthermore, it isn’t possible to search for books that have a particular feature. Instead, you must find a book and then look at its Product Details to determine which features are enabled. Furthermore, some features — such as Word Wise — are only available on certain devices.
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Users note other disadvantages of Kindle devices in the classroom, particularly the basic e-readers. Students found them difficult to use for high-level work, and they had problems downloading articles with extensive graphics. In addition, students accustomed to touch screens found it difficult to adjust to the devices7.
Management software Possibly the most important software available on these devices for educators is Amazon’s Whispercast. Whispercast is a free app that enables a Whispercast8 Administrator to manage digital content on mobile devices. Whispercast allows teachers to manage Internet-connected devices registered to their Whispercast account to:
• Distribute e-books, e-textbooks, apps, and personal files such as word processing documents, images, and PDFs to Kindle tablets and e-readers.
• Distribute digital content to any device with the free Kindle app (useful for BYOD programs).
• Apply settings such as Wi-Fi network settings, passwords, and device restrictions (such as limiting access to social networks, Web browser, and the Kindle store).
Another application useful for educators is FreeTime9, available on Kindle Fire tablets and e-Readers. Adults can create different profiles for different children, adjusting the restrictions for different ages or maturity. It is not clear whether this feature would be available with Whispercast. FreeTime allows adults to:
• Control the content that children can access.
• Restrict the amount of time or the hours in which children can use the device.
• Keep children from changing the device’s settings.
• Use Learn First to bar children from accessing games or cartoons until they have completed educational tasks.
• Let children take photos, add stickers and images, and save them in a separate Amazon Cloud photo gallery.
FreeTime Unlimited, similar to Kindle Unlimited, allows children to read an unlimited amount of approved content on Kindle devices. Kindle Unlimited is available for $4.99 for an individual subscription and $10.99 for a family subscription with a reduced cost for Amazon Prime members. No information is available on whether this feature is available for large groups of children such as classrooms.
Curriculum-Based Software The Amazon app store has over 20,000 educational apps and games that can be downloaded to Kindle devices. Like all educational apps, these vary in quality: ranging from Hooked on Phonics to apps on how to draw or examine the night sky. The cost of these apps also varies from free to quite expensive.
7 http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/mar13/vol70/num06/The-Kindle-Goes-to-High-School.aspx 8 https://whispercast.amazon.com/?ref=kas_wc_2 9 http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=201014620
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Amazon Education Solutions
One particularly interesting app is Tenmarks Math10 for students. This currently free program is written to support the Common Core Standards for Mathematics. Reviews are mixed, with some describing good results and others indicating that it is too difficult, poorly written, and full of mathematical errors. One reviewer noted that the explanation of an answer confirmed the accuracy of a response labeled as incorrect.
Bundling Options All Kindle devices have the potential for using Whispercast. If you buy devices from Amazon, you can designate one with an administrator account and batch-register other devices. To create an administrator account in an existing Kindle device and to connect existing Kindle devices to that account, you must contact Amazon customer service to add them individually.
All other software, such as Word Wise and X-Ray comes already loaded into any device or can be downloaded from the Amazon Education App Store.
Marketing Strategies and Resources Although Amazon has not been as aggressive as other companies in marketing to educational institutions, it has recently ramped up its efforts with the addition of software such as Tenmarks Math and its content management software, Whispercast. The company has also ended its five Kindle-per-order limit that made mass purchasing of the devices impractical.
Amazon’s web site for education, Engaging Students11, promotes Whispercast: the software that supports the management of multiple devices in an educational setting. For K-12 educators, the use of Kindle devices to support learning is also emphasized by describing the role these devices can play in literacy development:
• Supporting differentiation by allowing all students to use the same device while accessing texts of different levels of reading complexity;
• Getting students excited about reading;
• Supporting personalized reading experiences through customizable display, built-in references, and interactive features such as note taking and highlighting;
• Seamless distribution of eBooks to entire classes, many at no cost; and
• Encouraging vocabulary development.
The education-focused web site also explains how Kindle devices can be used in higher education primarily through the use of e-textbooks that they describe as cheaper to buy and to rent than traditional books. Some e-textbooks also have additional features, such as YouTube videos and web links.
According to Frank Catalano12, Amazon is undertaking a serious marketing initiative in Sao Paolo, Brazil, where the Ministry of Education is using the Kindle app — not Kindle devices — to distribute more than 40 million textbooks to high school students. This strategy focuses on Amazon’s core business: the distribution of digital content and its great promise, particularly in emerging markets.
10 https://www.tenmarks.com/ 11 http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000412651 12 http://www.geekwire.com/2014/amazon-educations-passive-lurker-gets-aggressive/],
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Amazon Products in the Classroom Amazon provides four case studies on educational uses of Kindle devices:
• Engaging K-12 Students13
• Distributing Content at Universities14
• Kindling a Passion for Reading15
• Literacy in the Developing World16
Cypress Fairbanks Independent School District, the third largest school district in Texas, purchased 1,200 Fire tablets for students and distributed digital books and apps to students with Whispercast. The case study on the Amazon web site states that the district intends to buy more devices, but no information can be found confirming when or if this purchase took place.
Worldreader, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving literacy rates in developing countries, has partnered with Amazon to provide digital books to students. Funded by donors and other partners, teachers use Whispercast to distribute e-books to students and to conduct research, plan lessons, and design comprehension questions. Amazon’s web site, Literacy in the Developing World17 states, “USAID also found that primary school students in Ghana who received e-readers showed increased performance on standardized test scores. Reading scores of primary school students who received e-readers increased from 12.9% to 15.7%, depending on whether they received any additional reading support.”
A high school special education teacher, Gigi Whiteside, describes her experiences using the Kindle e-readers — especially with the text-to-speech feature — in Kindling a Passion for Reading18. With money donated by the Parent Teacher Student Association, the teacher purchased nine Kindles and two digital books for each student. Whiteside found that not only were students excited to use the devices, their scores on standardized reading tests far outpaced those of her students in previous years.
Distribution Amazon devices are available at numerous retail locations. For a Kindle to be a “managed user device” and to use batch registration, however, you need to purchase it and all content from Amazon with one-click purchasing. To pay with a purchasing order, you must apply for a pay-in-full line of credit from Amazon. To register devices purchased elsewhere, users need to contact customer service and register them individually with device serial numbers.
There appear to be discounts for bulk purchases, but these must be completed with a phone call and the prices are not available on the web site.
13 http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000412651 14 https://whispercast.amazon.com/info/University-Texas-MBA/ref=UTexas-1000412651 15 http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ref=kas_c_milton_cap&docId=1000816731 16 https://whispercast.amazon.com/info/school-worldreader?ref=amb_link_360125902_4&] 17 https://whispercast.amazon.com/info/school-worldreader?ref=amb_link_360125902_4& 18 http://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?ref=kas_c_milton_cap&docId=1000816731
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Amplify Education Solutions
Amplify Education Solutions
The Amplify System delivers a unique value proposition not offered by other competitors in the K-12 market. A complete out-of-the-box solution, the product features a full software solution pre-loaded onto the devices. The software includes SIS Integration, real time assessments, digital curriculum planning with Playlist Builder, classroom management tools, and personalized notebooks.
Amplify is an open platform that can deliver a district’s existing or planned third-party curriculum; but it does come with its own curated app store, in partnership with Common Sense Media, called the Amplify Market. The tablet system, which runs using the Android operating system, is also fully compatible with Google Apps for Education and can be used in conjunction with the apps in the market.
SOFTWARE OFFERINGS The software that comes preloaded onto student and teacher devices is designed around a student’s or teacher’s class. Within each class notebook, teachers have many management controls, assessment features, and lesson plans that can be added to the class.
Management Software The Amplify Device Manager is Amplify’s pre-installed wireless MDM solution. It allows administrators to remotely manage devices and set up customized settings based on their needs.19
Features include the following:
• Compliance reporting;
• Status information: When device was last checked in, the success or failure of any operation applied to the device, hardware and storage details;
• Urgent Messaging: Administrators can send important information to all tablets or a subset of tablets;
19 http://www.amplify.com/tablet/mdm
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Amplify Education Solutions
• Password Policy and reset: Schools can require either a four-digit numeric pin or a six-character alphanumeric password. Administrators can reset password over the air;
• Allowed Apps: A base list of allowed apps is provided, but additional apps can be added at the district and/or school level. All Internet traffic is subject to a dynamic content filter;
• Management: Administrators can lock, factory reset, locate or unregister users from a device; and
• Installation: Software can be provisioned or installed without action on the tablet. Curricular content like eBooks and educational videos can be added to all tablets or a subset of tablets and distributed via CDN in the school.
Multi-user Support Originally designed only to support 1:1 implementations, a multi-user option has recently been added to the Amplify System. With the Amplify System multi-user option, districts purchase a desired number of tablets that can be shared across an entire school. Tablets are not assigned to any particular student or class, so a student can simply log in with any tablet and be able to participate. This approach allows flexibility in where and how devices are used across a school.
The multi-user option includes a single sign-out feature to protect student information. When students sign out of their devices, they are automatically signed out from all applications that they were using. All of the student’s information — including their notebooks, apps, doc, drive and Gmail — is personalized for each student when they log in.20
Instructional Software Personalized Notebooks Amplify tablets are organized into notebooks that appear on the home screen for both student and teacher devices. A teacher device will show one notebook per class taught and a student device will show one notebook for each class in which he or she is enrolled.21
Amplify uses the district’s student information system to provision the tablets to the students. Amplify works with Clever and school districts to set up the school roster information in the systems and make sure all the students are set up in the correct classes.
Clever allows a school student information system to sync with student apps, meaning that all student information and class rosters automatically upload into the apps and software products. It works by providing an API for third party technology software to access data from the SIS. It is free for schools and charges a fee to the software developers who use its software.22
20 http://www.amplify.com/tablet/multi-user 21 http://www.amplify.com/tablet/personalized-notebooks 22 https://clever.com/schools
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Amplify Education Solutions
All the information for the classes will show up in the notebook under the Class Feed, assignments, or all-items tab.
The class feed displays a history of what has happened in the class (polls, discussions, quizzes, etc.). Under the Assignment tab, a teacher will see all the assignments that he or she has given to students. Students will see their assignments by what is in progress, what has been submitted, and what has been completed and graded. The all- items tab shows teachers all of the playlists that have been created, where a student will only see the playlists that have been shared.
Classroom Management
The teacher devices also contain preloaded classroom management tools that can be used when a class is in session. Once a student device is checked in to class, the teacher can use the different tools to control the student devices.23
Management Features:
• Start Class/End Class: When a teacher presses the “Start Class” button, information is automatically gathered from student tablets to mark them as checked in. This then allows the other management features to control the student tablets;
• Eyes on Teacher: Student devices display “eyes on teacher” when teacher enables this feature, and students cannot use tablet until teacher disables or 90 seconds has passed;
• App Blocker: Allows teacher to block and select which apps are accessible during class;
23 http://www.amplify.com/tablet/classroom-management
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Amplify Education Solutions
• Class Monitor: Teachers can see in real-time which students have joined the classroom session and what apps they’re using;
• Call On: Randomly suggests students to be called on and alerts the students tablet with a message;
• Timer: Allows teacher to set a timer for use in group collaboration, quizzes, individual work and more;
• Count Off: Automatically puts students into assigned groups and alerts student tablets what group they are in. Teacher can choose how many groups to divide the class into; and
• Search: Teacher presses the search button and all student devices open a Google search page.
Real-Time Assessment
Amplify offers a number of different assessment tools to help gauge student understanding of material. Using the Amplify Quiz Builder, teachers can create, review and distribute assessments.24 In addition to creating quizzes and assessments in advance, there are a number of other informal assessment tools that teachers can use on the spot.
• Quick Poll: Allows teacher to send out a poll to all student devices and give them a choice of two, three or four choices. The poll just shows answers and does not show the question. When looking back at the class feed it will mention that a poll was given but not the content of the poll. The teacher will see an overall graph the number for each response and can get details of how each student responded.
• Short Answer: Similar to the poll, once a teacher has enabled a short answer, students will receive a screen reading “short answer” with room to type. The question that the students are responding to is not shown and will not show in the class feed. The teacher gets a list of student names and their responses.
• Spot Check: A teacher can issue a spot check where students can answer one of the following: Got it, Not sure, or Confused. The teacher will see an overall graph the number for each response and can get details of how each student responded.
• Discussion: A teacher can issue a discussion question and students can respond. In the class feed, the topic of discussion does show. Teachers can delete inappropriate comments if needed.
Playlist Builder
The Amplify Playlist Builder is an online portal where teachers create custom lesson plans to distribute to their classes.25 Using their Amplify account, teachers go to playlist.amplify.com and sign into the portal. The website can be accessed from any devices through the Chrome browser.
Teachers develop playlists for classes, where they can add resources to a list (links, files or quizzes) that will be shared with students. There are two methods for creating quizzes: a quick quiz button (the old method) and a separate “Quizzes” tab. When clicking the tab, teachers are taken to a separate web page where they create the quiz and receive a link for sharing. The teacher can then insert the quiz into the playlist builder using the “link” option.
24 http://www.amplify.com/tablet/real-time-assessment 25 http://www.amplify.com/tablet/playlistbuilder
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There is also a quick share feature that allows teachers to share files instantly with the class. Teachers need to be aware that students must have an app that is able to open any files that are shared. Additionally, if files are too large, downloads will be slow when the whole class is trying to access the file.
CONTENT
Bundled Options Amplify Market The Amplify Market is a curated K-12 app store that Amplify has created in partnership with Common Sense Media. The apps are a mix of Android apps as well as some new apps that are custom to Amplify. The market includes subject-specific apps as well as tools and engaging educational games in the categories of: social studies, math, art/music, science, ELA, and foreign language. The market includes educator ratings, reviews and standard and skill alignment. The market includes free access to more than $40 worth of education apps when compared to the Google Play store, and over $55 worth of apps when compared to the iOS store. The Amplify Market integrates with the district’s Allowed Apps List. One person in the district manages the market and can approve and add apps to the market for teacher and student download.
App Bundles App bundles are available in the Amplify market and are categorized into the following subject areas: Science, ELA, Social Studies, Math, Art/Music, and Foreign Language
Unbundled Options Google Apps for Education Google Apps for Education is the free suite of productivity tools available to K-12 schools including Gmail, Drive and Docs, and is compatible with all major platforms including Windows 8, Macintosh, iOS, and Android. The Amplify System is fully compatible with Google Apps for Education and can be used in conjunction with the apps available in the Amplify Market.
Third-Party Curriculum Amplify is an open platform that can deliver a district’s existing or planned third-party curriculum choices by integrating content into playlists. Amplify will work with the district or school during the implementation process to get the relevant content onto the tablets.
Marketing There is little information on how Amplify markets to schools. To help their partners, Amplify had created a partner portal which contained guidelines, messaging, training videos, sell sheets, presentations and other collateral. As of April 2015, the Amplify Partner Portal site was no longer accessible and a representative from Amplify confirmed that the site was no longer active.
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Distribution Amplify has distributed its tablets in the US only and — as of 2015 — to only 20 schools for a total of 30,000 tablets. Amplify has had many issues with its tablets as well as infiltration into the K-12 market.26 The map below has been supplied by Amplify in their marketing materials for partners as to where their tablets have been deployed, including pilot programs.
Resources i http://www.amplify.com/tablet/mdm ii http://www.amplify.com/tablet/multi-user iii http://www.amplify.com/tablet/personalized-notebooks iv https://clever.com/schools v http://www.amplify.com/tablet/classroom-management vi http://www.amplify.com/tablet/real-time-assessment vii http://www.amplify.com/tablet/playlistbuilder viii http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-newscorp07-20150407-story.html#page=1
26 http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-blm-news-bc-newscorp07-20150407-story.html#page=1
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Apple Education Solutions
Apple’s educational software offerings consist of a suite of their proprietary apps, some management tools, and built-in tools that Apple markets towards special education. Apple also offers a number of management features to make it easier for schools to deploy Apple solutions.
Creation Apps Apple’s creation tools include Photos (formerly iPhoto), iMovie and GarageBand. Photo is a photo library program that comes with editing tools, iMovie allows users to edit videos they have taken with their camera, or a video uploaded into the program. Users can share the videos through email, iMessage, or uploaded directly to YouTube, Vimeo or CNN iReport. Apple’s music making app, GarageBand, allows students to record, edit and mix music. Recordings and creations can be shared through Facebook, YouTube, SoundCloud, or a personal iTunes library. All of these creation tools are available on iOS or OSX.
Productivity Apps Apple has a suite of productivity tools, also available on both iOS and OS X. They include a word processing program, spreadsheet program, and presentation program, called Pages, Numbers, and Keynotes, respectively. These programs are compatible with Microsoft Office, and more recently, available online through their iCloud accounts (discussed in detail under the Management section).27
Released in February 2015, Apple released a new feature, allowing iWork (Pages, Numbers, Keynote), to be accessed in a browser from iCloud.com. This allows students who are working on a non-Apple device to access their content, and work within the browser.28
iBooks According to Apple, iBooks has a massive selection of books, many of which are free. They have curated collections, including standards- aligned books and Common Core edition books.
Many publishers have created versions of textbooks specifically for iBooks, including Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, McGraw Hill Education, and Person.29
iBooks has many of the features you would expect in an e-reader app including highlighting, note taking, searching for content and finding definitions of words in a glossary. iBooks includes many interactive, touch-friendly features to help keep students engaged. These features include 3D images that can be manipulated and rotated, interactive images that can be enlarged to discover details, and interactive galleries within a page. Another feature to help students review material is the study card feature. Any notes and highlights that a student has taken appear automatically on study cards. Definitions of glossary words, or notes from a highlighted section will appear on
27 https://www.apple.com/education/ipad/in-the-classroom/ 28 http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/apple-brings-web-based-pages-numbers-and-keynote-beyond-the-icloud-beta/ 29 https://www.apple.com/education/ipad/ibooks-textbooks/
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the flip side of the card. Students can color-coat their highlights and review study cards by color, allowing them to organize their materials into groups.
In order to create content for iBooks, iBooks Author is needed. It is offered as an app available only for Mac, allows users to create interactive iBooks for iPad and Mac. The program comes with Apple-designed templates to choose from as well as the ability to create your own templates.30 iBooks Author can handle a variety of different file types including word documents, graphics, movies, Adobe InDesign and ePub files and more. To create interactive features, iBooks Author has a number of different widgets that can be added to the text including galleries, review questions, Keynote presentations, interactive images and HTML code.
There are two options to share the content created in iBooks publisher: publish the content to the iBook store, or export the book for iBooks in a different formats. To publish books to iBooks for free or for purchase, the user needs to sign up and complete an application to offer books on iBooks, confirm their account and sign into iTunes Connect to manage books, and then submit books using their submission app, iTunes Producer. Exporting options include a PDT files, text only files, or as an iBook format. To open the book in iBooks, the file has to be emailed, and then opened from an iPad in order to open in iBooks, or the file can be manually synced using iTunes to get the book onto an iPad. If the book is exported as a PDF, some of the interactive features may not function properly.31
iTunes U iTunes U is a database of more than 800,000 educational content resources including lectures, videos, books and more. iTunes U content is all offered for free, and contains about 8,000 public courses published by teachers and professors from around the world. Teachers can create their own courses where they can create assignments or messages, add materials such as apps, videos, books and their own existing content, and create class discussions. Each course can have up to five course contributors, so teachers can collaborate on courses.32
Student features include getting automatic updates when a teacher has updated or changed a course, as well as being able to track their assignments and due dates. They can also take notes on assigned content within the app. If a student needs to access their content offline, they can download the materials while they are connected to Wi-Fi so that they can access the content later without Internet access.
Management Software MDM Framework Both iOS and OS X devices have a built-in MDM framework that allows both Apple Profile Manager MDM solution and third-party solutions to wirelessly interact with devices. The framework supports the following features:
• Managed Accounts: installation, management and removal of accounts that provide access to email and calendar;
• Managed Configurations: passcodes and restrictions;
• Managed Apps: installation, configuration, management and removal of apps;
30 https://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/ 31 https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2809?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_CA 32 https://www.apple.com/education/ipad/itunes-u/
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• Managed books: distribution of books, ePubs and PDFs created or purchased from Volume Purchase Program;
• Managed Domains: control which apps have permission to open documents downloaded from school domains using Safari;
• Device queries: querying of device, network, application and security information; and
• Security commands: enforce passcode policies and remotely lock or wipe a stolen or lost device.
To get started with using the MDM framework with a third-party MDM solution, a district or school must obtain an SSL certificate from Apple, which allows the server to securely communicate with Apple Push Notification service.
Profile Manager Apple’s MDM solution is called Profile Manager, and is a service of OS X Server. The Profile Manager allows IT staff to configure and distribute settings to both iOS and OS X devices in their school. 33Profile Manager has three components:
• Over the air configuration of Apple devices: management of institutionally-owned devices;
• Mobile device management; and
• App and Book distribution through the Volume Purchasing Program.
The Profile Manager and OS X server, is not a bundled solution offered by Apple, but is one method of managing devices in the classroom.
33 https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/4.0/#/apd0E2214C6-50F0-48C9-A482-74CEA1D77A9F
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Device Enrollment Program Released in 2014, Apple released the Device Enrollment Program (DEP) that allows schools to enroll devices in the districts MDM wirelessly. Previous to then, school districts would have to connect each device through USB to a computer running Apple Configurator to enroll devices in the MDM. In addition to connecting the devices for initial enrollment, any updates also required that the devices be connected via USB to a computer running the Apple Configurator. The addition of this program makes it drastically easier for school districts to manage mobile devices, whether they are using Apple MDM or a third-party MDM service; however, in order to use the Device Enrollment Program, the devices have to be purchased through Apple of a certified Apple Reseller, and the devices have to be institutionally owned.34 Additionally, the Device Enrollment Program allows schools to have mandatory configuration settings that can be locked so that users cannot change or disable the settings.35 Prior to the DEP, students were able to get around the schools security settings, which happened at LA Unified School District.36
Features of the Device Enrollment Program include:
• Mandatory and lockable MDM enrollment: students will not be able to remove the profile off of their device;
• Wireless supervision: allows IT to turn off certain features like iMessage, AirDrop, or Game Center. Also allows for web filtering, and single app mode; and
• Zero-touch configuration for IT: Admins can enroll the devices by serial number or order number, meaning they can be enrolled before the device even leave the boxes.
Volume Purchasing Program The Volume Purchasing Program allows schools and districts to purchase apps and books in bulk. This program is available in Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, and the United States.
When apps or books have been bought through VPP, the content can be distributed with redeemable codes to students, or, if the devices are supervised by and MDM solution, apps and books can be remotely installed.
To set up VPP, the institution needs to set up an account with a manager of the program. The account manager, once enrolled, uses the VPP store to search for content, enter the quantity for purchase, and complete the transaction with a credit card or with a purchase order.37
34 https://www.apple.com/education/docs/DEP_Guide.pdf 35 http://www.citeworld.com/article/2114897/mobile-byod/apple-device-enrollment-program-supervision-mdm-emm-setup-deployment.html 36 http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/25/local/la-me-ln-lausd-ipad-hack-20130925 37 https://www.apple.com/education/it/vpp/ For Internal Use 1001 SE Water Avenue Suite 400 Portland, Oregon 97214 503 248–4300 clarity-innovations.com
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Apple ID and iCloud Student accounts are set up through AppleID. Through AppleID, students can sign in to iCloud, iTunes U, the App Store, and iBooks store. Apple IDs can be set up to automatically back up and store personal data using Apple’s cloud based storage system, called iCloud. This allows students to access their content from other devices.
For students under 13, Apple offers and Apple ID for Students program, that allows parents to consent to an account at the request of a school or district. Parents then set up an Apple ID for their child. Parents have access to information about the use of Apple ID and any data associated with the account. These accounts are different from a full Apple ID account in the following ways:
• Students cannot opt- in to receive marketing material;
• Parents can be notified of any changes to the terms of the account;
• Limit Ad Tracking is turned on so students don’t receive targeted ads from Apple; and
• A credit card is not required for an iTunes Store account.
When a student reaches 13, the Apple ID is converted into a full account.38
Bundled Software Build in Features Apple devices come with many different built-in features, many of which Apple markets towards special education. The following features are what Apple considers their special education features:39
• Speak Selection: the device can read student email, iMessages, web pages and eBooks out loud. The dialect and speaking rate can be adjusted;
• Guided Access: helps students with attention or sensory problems stay on task. A teacher can limit the device to stay on one app by disabling the Home button and restrict touch in certain areas of the screen;
• Siri: built in personal assistant can help students who struggle with organization by scheduling activities and setting reminders;
• Dictation: students can reply to an email, make a note, search the web or write a report by pressing the microphone button and speaking. Dictation converts words, number and characters into text;
• Safari Reader: reduces visual clutter of web page and removes distractions (ads, buttons, and navigation bars);
• FaceTime: allows students at home or hospital bound engage with the rest of the class. Good for students who communicate using sign language;
• PhotoBooth: another communication tool;
38 https://www.apple.com/education/it/appleid/ 39 https://www.apple.com/education/special-education/ios/
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• Camera: can be used to record students, classes, experiments, field trips, etc.
• Word prediction: can help students with dyslexia or cognitive challenges; and
• VoiceOver: a gesture-based screen reader that lets students know what’s happening on their screen. Accessed by triple clicking the home button and they will head a description of everything happening on their screen.
Unbundled Options App Store Unlike Google or Amplify who have separate education app stores, Apple does not have a dedicated app store for education. Apple does have over 80,000 education apps, including its education collections. When searching for apps in the App Store, users can search by age categories: Preschool and Kindergarten, elementary school, middle school, and high school. Apps can also be categorized by subject area, and apps for teachers.
Education Collections Apple has created a number of education collections of apps that they have curated. Apps still need to be individually downloaded, and are not downloaded as an entire set, but they are all pre-categorized into the following areas:
• Teachers Starter Kit: contains what Apple considers are the essentials with apps including Evernote, Edmodo, BrainPOP, apps made by Apple, and more;
• Special Education: Apps divided into the categories of communication, emotional development, sensory and visual perception, seeing and hearing, language development, life skills and trackers and reference;
• Explore your Creativity;
• Lifelong Learning;
• Test Prep;
• Kickstart your School Year: productivity, reference and organization apps;
• Homework Projects;
• Night Sky;
• Apps for Learning Music;
• Calculators;
• Virtual Field Trips;
• William Shakespeare: His Life & Works;
• Learn to Code;
• Brainstorming;
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• Animation Apps;
• Painting and Drawing;
• Apps for Writers;
• Learning Made Fun;
• Explore the World: Apps for Young Scientists;
• Create & Plan; and
• Interactive Kids Stories.
Marketing Strategies Apple Distinguished Educators Apple has a program called Apple Distinguished Educators (ADE’s), which is similar to Microsoft’s Innovative Educators and Google’s Certified Educators and trainers. Apple distinguished educators are located worldwide, and are recognized as leaders who are doing “amazing things with Apple technology in and out of the classroom.”
Unlike some of the programs that allow anyone to become certified by taking courses, the ADE program involves educators going through a competitive application process where hopeful ADEs complete an application and create a two-minute video about what they are doing with Apple technology in the classroom.
According to Apple’s website, there are currently more than 2,000 ADEs worldwide who work closely with Apple to lead innovation in education. ADEs also contribute courses and content to iTunes U, and Apple has provided a section within iTunes U where all their content lives.40
40 https://www.apple.com/education/apple-distinguished-educator/
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Apple Distinguished Schools In addition to Apple Distinguished Schools, Apple also recognizes schools worldwide that show successful implementation of a one-to-one program with their Five Best Practices.41 The Five Best Practices, as outlined by Apple, are the following:
• Visionary Leadership: shared, individual and community leadership;
• Innovative Learning and Teaching: including student learning, instructional practices, and curriculum design;
• Ongoing Professional Development;
• Compelling Evidence of Success: both quantitative and qualitative; and
• Flexible Learning Environment: school design and facilities and IT
Education Sales Force Apple has a number of different education sales roles including more typical titles such as Account Executive – K-12 Education, Education K-12 Inside Account Executive, and Sales Support Specialists.42 Apple also has a role for a Systems Engineer – Education Sales. This role provides technical support and expertise in order to drive sales, and works with the Education Sales account team and the customers directly.
For higher education, many of the roles are similar, with the addition of campus reps. Campus Reps are students in college who want to help evangelize for Apple and its products. Apple mentions that the student should have a passion for working with others and innovating the way we teach and learn.
Distribution As of February 2013, iTunes U reached the one billion downloads mark. They also released that they had sold more than eight million iPads to educational institutions worldwide, with 4.5 million of those sales in the United States. In July 2014, Apple said the company had sold 13 million iPads into education globally; a huge increase from the report out in 2013.43
In January 2014, Apple announced that iBooks, and iTunes U were going to expand into Asia, Latin America, Europe and elsewhere to be offered in over 50 countries.44
41 https://www.apple.com/education/apple-distinguished-schools/ 42 https://jobs.apple.com/us/search#specs&ss=Education&t=0&so=&lo=0*USA&pN=0 43 http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2014/07/apple_boasts_of_surge_in_worldwide_sales_of_ipads_for_education.html 44 http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475825/apple-ios/apple--s-education-innovation-goes-global.html For Internal Use 1001 SE Water Avenue Suite 400 Portland, Oregon 97214 503 248–4300 clarity-innovations.com
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Resources i https://www.apple.com/education/ipad/in-the-classroom/
ii https://www.apple.com/education/ipad/ibooks-textbooks/
iii https://www.apple.com/ibooks-author/
iv https://support.apple.com/kb/PH2809?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_CA
v https://www.apple.com/education/ipad/itunes-u/
vi https://www.apple.com/education/it/vpp/
vii http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/26/apple-brings-web-based-pages-numbers-and-keynote-beyond-the-icloud- beta/
viii https://www.apple.com/education/it/appleid/
ix https://www.apple.com/education/special-education/ios/
x http://www.computerworld.com/article/2475825/apple-ios/apple--s-education-innovation-goes-global.html
xi https://help.apple.com/serverapp/mac/4.0/#/apd0E2214C6-50F0-48C9-A482-74CEA1D77A9F
xii https://www.apple.com/education/docs/DEP_Guide.pdf
xiii https://www.apple.com/education/apple-distinguished-educator/
xiv http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/marketplacek12/2014/07/apple_boasts_of_surge_in_worldwide_sales_of_ ipads_for_education.html
xv http://www.citeworld.com/article/2114897/mobile-byod/apple-device-enrollment-program-supervision-mdm- emm-setup-deployment.html
xvi http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/25/local/la-me-ln-lausd-ipad-hack-20130925
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Dell Education Solutions
Long a leader in affordable hardware, Dell has made a significant shift in its K-12 strategy in recent years. In early 2012, the company made headlines by announcing that it was an IT company, not a hardware company. This was followed shortly by the introduction of an ambitious learning management system called the Dell Learning Platform and other management service offerings for schools. In 2014, Dell became a late entrant into the Chromebook market, where it is actively promoting Google Apps, Classroom and other management tools as their featured software solution.
SOFTWARE PRODUCTS
Windows Software Dell’s K-12 software offerings are focused around learning management, collaboration, and data management.
Dell Learning Platform A comprehensive learning management system (LMS), the Dell Learning Platform (DLP) was developed in collaboration with Intel® and introduced in 2012. The platform includes student information, learning management, grade book, curriculum map, collaboration tools, and digital learning resources.45
Key features of DLP include:
• Customizable, role-based user interface optimized for PCs, tablets and mobile devices;
• Single sign-on (SSO) and identity management to work with existing school applications
• Standards-based approach to integration of content, learning tools and resources; and
• Centralized collaboration approach to support greater engagement among educators, students and parents.
45 http://i.dell.com/sites/doccontent/public/solutions/k12/en/Documents/k12-dell-learning-platform-intro.pdf
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After three years on the market, Dell has struggled to gain share against significant competition in the LMS space. One of the platform’s highest profile wins was in St. Paul Minnesota, where in 2013, the 39,000-student district agreed to a $4.3 million, five-year deal. However, after less than a year, the district made the decision to drop DLP because it was falling well short of expectations: particularly with regard to support for mobile devices.46 According to school officials, “SPPS and Dell agreed that the software will not serve students and teachers directly enough or quickly enough to continue investing in it.” The district subsequently initiated a comprehensive iPad program.
Collaboration Solutions Dell offers the K-12 market a cloud-based, collaborative solution, developed in partnership with application providers including ePals, Microsoft, and Intel.
This product includes a number of features designed to promote collaboration47:
• Policy/role-based permissions, content moderation and language filters;
• Global collaboration forums to connect teachers;
• Embedded blogs, forums, galleries, calendars and drop boxes that the teacher can turn on and off to customize projects;
• Solutions to manage and share assignments, projects and resources with a group, class or school; and
• Externally facing school-branded pages from easy-to-use templates to manage public communications.
Education Data Management (EDM) Developed in collaboration with Intel, Dell offers an integrated solution that enables districts to capture, store and use data in decision-making48.
Key components of Dell’s EDM system include:
• Master data management/data governance: a set of processes and technologies that collect, store, integrate and distribute critical data across an organization’s information systems, applications and business processes;
• Warehousing of district data via a secure, integrated repository designed specifically for querying and reporting;
46 http://www.twincities.com/education/ci_25865441/st-paul-schools-dumps-4-3m-dell-contract 47 http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/26/k-12-solutions-featured-solutions-collaboration 48 http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/26/k-12-solutions-featured-solutions-education-data-management
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• Education intelligence: a set of services delivering data through role-based dashboards, scorecards and reports; and,
• Education data portal: a self-service site for users to access and process data.
Chrome Software On its Chrome devices, Dell largely defers to the use of Google’s popular and successful software tools including Google Apps, Classroom and Management Console. The company has however partnered with VMware to offer software that extends Chromebook functionality by allowing virtualization of Windows apps.
Dell Engineered Solutions for VMware EVO: RAIL For schools and districts looking to enhance the functionality of their Chrome-based infrastructure, this product expands the reach of Chrome-based devices with a scalable virtual desktop infrastructure, allowing schools to run high-performance applications such as Autocad or use specialized administrative software on Chromebook devices.
Bundling Dell features several devices targeted to the K-12 market. Chromebooks, of course, include access to the full suite of Google of apps and management tools. Windows devices include a relatively bare bones collection of bundled software.
Chromebooks • Chromebook 11: Google Apps
Windows • Latitude 11 Education Series laptop: Backup and Recovery, Power Manager, Skype, Bing, Internet Explorer 11, OneDrive and Movie Maker. A trial version of Microsoft Office 2013 is included, as is a 12-month subscription to McAfee Security Center.
• Latitude 13 Education Series laptop: Backup and Recovery, Power Manager, Skype, Bing, Internet Explorer 11, OneDrive and Movie Maker. A trial version of Microsoft Office 2013 is included, as is a 12-month subscription to McAfee Security Center.
• Venue 10 Pro tablet. Management and security software not included; 1 year Microsoft Office 365 included
• Venue 11 Pro tablet. Management and security software not included; 1 year Microsoft Office 365 included
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Marketing strategies and resources As previously mentioned, Dell has made a concerted effort in recent years to reposition itself as a supplier of IT services, rather than a hardware vendor. For example, on Dell’s K-12 Solutions page49, it’s difficult to even find hardware on in the menu, with a decided focus on software offerings at the top of “Featured Solutions”. Clearly Dell has determined that selling hardware boxes based on performance specs is not the best way to connect with educators, with marketing language keying on topics such as blended learning, personalized learning and data management. Finding ways to provide support for the pedagogical and learning objectives of educators is a critical and ongoing challenge for Dell to address.
Distribution Purchases of Dell devices are made through contracts with states or agencies.
49 http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/26/k-12-solutions 50 Financial Times and International Data Corporation (IDC), Dec 1, 2014
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Google Education Solutions Google Education Solutions
With the announcement in Q3 of 2014 that US education market Chromebook unit sales have surpassed the iPad50, Google is on a path to take over the K-12 market. In the US, sales of Chromebooks with Intel architecture have gone from a single digit position in 2013 to nearly 80% market segment share as of late 2014.51 At the same time, since its introduction in 2006, Google Apps for Education has grown its user base to more than 40 million users worldwide; offering an easily managed, web-based suite of tools that support all major platforms. Once mocked as a “dilettante” effort in productivity applications, Google’s free productivity apps Docs, Sheets, and Slides now pose a major threat to Microsoft Office, and have served as something of a flagship proving Google’s fierce dedication to the education space.
THE GOOGLE APPS FOR EDUCATION SUITE Google Apps for Education (GAFE) is a free, hosted suite that provides email, calendar, chat, word processing, spreadsheets, presentation tools, website builder, and integrated user management capabilities including the recently released Google Classroom. These are all cloud-based apps, with storage through Google Drive allowing easy real-time sharing and file backup.
Classroom This robust app allows teachers to create, share, and grade assignments and improve communication with students.
Launched in August 2014, Google Classroom looks poised to make a significant impact in educational technology. Like other Google education products, Classroom is free and available to any schools using GAFE. In recent years, the Google Drive collection of products including Docs, Sheets, and Slides has been chipping away at Microsoft Office market share, and the added features of Classroom is likely to expedite this shift.
Essentially a very lightweight LMS, Classroom overlays GAFE and provides teachers the ability to easily create and collect assignments electronically. Folders are automatically created in Google Drive for each assignment, and students can keep track of what’s due on an assignments page. When starting new assignments, Classroom automatically makes a copy of a Google document for each student.
51 Data from Future Source
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In many ways, Google Classroom tries to emulate the classic work-flow between students and teachers. Teachers can either invite students individually, or more commonly they share an invitation code that allows students to join a class. The teacher first creates an assignment, selects an associated Google document, and then chooses to “make a copy for each student.” Assignments and announcements are displayed in a stream much like posts on Google+. Each item contains a title and description, as well as links to a files, videos, or URLs. A due date/time can also be included with an assignment. Each student edits his or her respective Google document to complete the work. Both the student and the teacher have editing permissions giving the teacher the ability to provide feedback through the entirety of the assignment. When finished, students click a “Turn in” button. The teacher can see a list of completed assignments and select each to review. During review they can add comments and assign a grade. Finally, they can return the work back to the student.
While Google Classroom offers a way to easily distribute and collect assignments, it doesn’t include many features found on full-scale LMS products. These typically include lesson planning, certification management, reporting, or integration with third-party grade books (currently only option is to export the grade as an XLS file). Classroom currently does not integrate with any third party apps, and Google claims that part of the reason is that it’s being more cautious with student data, according to Zach Yeskel, a product manager on the GAFE team.52
Gmail Gmail for educators provides a professional email address at a school’s domain (for example, Teacher@ yourschool.edu instead of [email protected]). Gmail’s spam protection, enhanced security features, powerful search capabilities, and integrated calendars help educators stay on top of correspondence. As part of the Google Apps for Education suite, Gmail features no advertising, as well as shared access to Drive and Docs and additional storage across Gmail and Drive. Gmail also saves educators time as many are already familiar with Gmail’s intuitive user experience.
Drive Features of Google Drive for Education (GDFE) allows security encryption of all files while in transit and in storage, the ability to organize classroom assignments into folders, single file storage of up to 5TB, and continues to extend Google Apps for Education as advertising-free and with the educator review process that ensures usability, alignment with standards and compliance with security standards.
Calendar Calendar helps educators, administrators and students to streamline and better manage planning time with shareable calendars that integrate seamlessly with Gmail, Drive, Contacts, Sites, and Hangouts. Users can easily create calendar events for their school or classroom from Gmail messages, check the availability of other Calendar users (even students and community members), and schedule Hangouts (video chats) with colleagues, peers and parents. Calendar is also compatible with other popular calendar applications and is accessible on mobile devices.
52 https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-08-12-google-classroom-s-doors-open
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Uses for teachers could include: the ability to publish and share public events, holidays, and exam schedules; create and manage appointments with parents and students; and view and manage multiple calendars on tablets and phones. Desktop and mobile notifications notify users of upcoming events. Offline capabilities allow for access and modification of event details that sync automatically when a user’s device is back online. Advanced calendar sharing features allow for control of who can discover, view, and modify different calendars, as well as the granting of access to any individual or group, even if they do not use Google Calendar.
Docs The Google Docs suite is a set of productivity tools that includes the ability to create, edit, share, and collaborate, anytime, anywhere: using a computer, tablet, or mobile device. Documents, spreadsheets, and presentations can be accessed and edited offline or online and shared to one or to many. As part of Google Apps for Education, teachers can use Docs to start, observe and assess student understanding throughout a lesson; collaborate with students and colleagues on the go, using tablets and phones; and communicate with students on a project using chat and comments. Docs is part of a suite of real-time collaboration products — including Sheets, Slides, Forms, and Drawings — that allow for the simple creation, editing, sharing, and publishing of content such as lesson plans, science projects, class presentations, and quizzes. Though document owners maintain control of permissions, more than one user can edit, chat, make comments and suggestions, as well as view revision histories. Docs features offline capabilities, with files syncing to Google Drive once online.
Sheets Google Sheets allows teachers, administrators and students to create, format, edit and view spreadsheets — both online and offline — from computers, tablets and mobile devices. Sheets can be shared with anyone, with simultaneous, real-time editing by a group of people, including chat and commenting. Features like Microsoft Excel® editing, file conversion, add-ons, and offline editing, make Sheets a powerful, free tool for teaching and learning. With Sheets, teachers can track students’ learning over time; visualize and interact with data using charts; and input and edit grades into an online grade book. Information collected from a Google Form can be captured in a Sheet for analyzing, tracking, and graphing large amounts of data from student experiments. Functions in Sheets can pull data and information from web-based sources, updating spreadsheets so they remain accurate automatically.
Slides Google Slides allows users to create, edit, format and share presentations online and offline — from mobile devices, tablets, and computers — with a variety of presentation themes, thousands of fonts, embedded video, and animations, and more. Slides can be built collaboratively with anyone working on the same presentation at the same time, with real-time chat and commenting. Features like Microsoft PowerPoint® editing, file conversion, and offline editing, make Google Slides a powerful, free tool for teaching and learning. Teachers can build creative assignments for students; enhance lesson plans and activities using videos, photos, images, and other educational media; have students create original work and assignments using 21st Century work skills; and use Slides to introduce and reinforce topics, to tell stories, and represent information in different ways using videos or
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visualizations. Peers can work together to present an interactive story, and teachers can provide ongoing feedback throughout the creation process. When the presentation is ready to present to the world, in just a few clicks, it can be published to the web.
Hangouts Google Hangouts is Google’s free video-conferencing tool that is available for teachers to use as part of Google Apps for Education for group video calls, virtual office hours, and field trips.
Up to 10 participants can join a Google Hangout at a time. It lets educators connect their classrooms with other classrooms anywhere in the world. It can also — according to Andrew Marcinek, director of technology for Groton- Dunstable Regional School District in Groton, MA53 — empower educators and students to broadcast and archive live sessions, share screens and create collaborative demonstrations, create live shows and talks for broadcast, create two-way conversations in a digital format (“People can easily ‘drop in’ and see what’s happening, interact with the group, and then save everything for later viewing,” Marcinek says.), develop rich online portfolios then develop a repository of videos, work, and presentations that’s accessible to others, and leverage the application for professional development.
To teachers considering Hangouts as a classroom tool, Marcinek said, “Make sure you have the Wi-Fi capabilities to handle the streaming video.” Without that piece of the puzzle, he said the video chat service will quickly become more of a burden than a help. He added that the sign-up process is easier for schools that already use Google Apps for Education. Finally, he said, be sure to obtain permission from parents — a step that should be taken anytime new applications or sharing services are introduced into a K-12 classroom. “Because the videos are published to a broad audience on the web,” said Marcinek, “you want to be clear both with parents and the administration on exactly what you’re doing — just in case.”
Other applications of Hangouts for educators include virtual book clubs and book talks, connecting with authors, math bees with other schools, showing off science experiments, foreign language students could connect with other countries, and professional learning communities could meet with other, likeminded educators.54
Sites Google Sites can be used to create custom websites and webpages without knowing HTML or other complex coding languages. It works with only a web browser so teachers and students do not need to buy or download software. Educators can use tablets and phones to upload images to a class or project team’s website; create a school or class announcements page to share with parents online; produce professional development sites; and create teacher and student portfolios to showcase learning, for instance.
Google Sites features an intuitive, web-based editor for creating, managing and sharing websites featuring embedded documents, videos, images, shared calendars, and more. Sites can be styled to match existing school websites, or created from public or private templates. Sites also has built-in search, powered by Google, so people can find exactly the information they are looking for.
53 http://thejournal.com/articles/2013/09/17/6-ways-teachers-can-use-google-hangouts.aspx?m=1 54 https://sites.google.com/site/gpluseduhangouts/ideas
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Students can use Sites to build websites showcasing their schoolwork without writing a single line of code. They can use it to create digital portfolios to feature their work and achievements; create and manage to-do lists for their assignments and classroom activities; collaborate on group projects; and present their findings on a particular research subject. And Google Sites uses encrypted connections to Google’s servers for privacy and security.
Some other classroom applications include55:
• Webpage for the class where to include course materials and rich content including videos, images, slides, and audio recordings;
• Posting homework, assignments, and class events;
• A discussion board where every student can have a say;
• A page for posting announcements, class events, reading materials, classroom rules, and many more;
• A wiki that lets students collaboratively work on their assignments and edit content;
• A File Cabinet page to upload documents, PDFs and other materials to share with your students;
• A private page where to share information with parents such as curriculum resources; and,
• A calendar to keep track of your deadlines or Google Spreadsheet to keep track of research.
General Benefits for Educators According to Google, as of September 2014 over 30 million students and educators were using Google Apps for Education56.
Five principal advantages for K-12 educators include57:
Privacy and Safety Google Apps for Education includes security features specifically designed to keep school data safe and secure. Google Apps offers an extra layer of security with two-factor authentication — reducing the risk of hackers stealing usernames and passwords — and browser sessions are automatically encrypted, protecting students and teachers data as it travels between the browser and Google’s data center.
Collaboration Integrated, cloud-based tools allow for streamlined writing, editing, collaborating and sharing: with anytime/ anywhere access on most any device. Text and video chat also enhance real-time communication.
55 http://www.educatorstechnology.com/2013/01/teachers-guide-on-use-of-google-sites.html 56 http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2014/09/announcing-drive-for-education-21st.html 57 http://getedspire.com/top-5-advantages-google-apps-k-12-education/
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Affordability Google Apps for Education licenses are free, with tools that don’t require the purchase or maintenance of dedicated servers or software. Apps are updated every time a user logs in. Forrester Consulting found that the ROI of switching to Google Apps is over 300 percent58.
Easy Adoption Because students and teachers are familiar with the tools outside of school, using them at school is second nature. As a result, schools that switch to Google Apps for Education consistently experience a high rate of adoption with students, educators and administrators: For example, a case study revealed that when the University of Notre Dame in Indiana switched to Google Apps for Education, people increased their use of email, had 20% fewer questions for the Help Desk, and indicated a 36% increase in IT satisfaction since the migration to Google Apps.
Reduction of Environmental Impact Google’s data centers are more energy-efficient than traditional on-premise servers. And switching to cloud- based tools means less energy-expenditure for schools, while collaborative tools reduce extraneous printing and travel costs.
Add-on Social Apps Blogger and Google Groups Blogger is an easy-to-use yet extremely powerful content publishing platform that helps students and teachers broadcast stories, insights, experiments, and ideas. Blogger offers a powerful rich-editor and intuitive tools that require no web design experience to use. It also provides great flexibility and full control over the blog content users create, allowing for the addition of CSS and JavaScript to create a unique look and feel. Just like Google Apps, Blogger runs in Google’s cloud so there is no new hardware required or updating of software. Its anti-spam filter, however, has a tendency to block students after detecting multiple users signing up from the same IP address range. Blogger also requires students to be 13 years of age or older.
Google Groups allows the creation of groups and mailing lists, including Usenet archives and archives of public groups. There are millions of public groups available, so no matter the subject, educators and students are likely to find relevant discussions that they can follow and join using Google Groups. Users can also set up their own public discussion communities.
Once enrolled in a group, a user can access discussion forums associated with the group, and send and receive emails that are addressed to the specific Google Group email address for that group. Groups can be created and managed by any user in a domain. They can, of course, also be managed (including deletion) by the super admin for the domain.
58 http://googleforeducation.blogspot.com/2014/09/announcing-drive-for-education-21st.html
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Google Play for Education Google Play for Education (GPE) is a collection of thousands of instantly shared free and paid apps, books, and videos for Chromebooks and Android tablets that have been vetted for K-12. This “curated app store59” focuses on device-based apps and other content (in contrast to GAFE’s focus on cloud-based apps). However, it is also as much a device/content-management program as it is a point of access for apps. Its central hub is the GPE online store, which contains apps, books and videos, as well as bulk purchases of tablets. The store allows free trials on apps before purchase, bulk purchases, centralized distribution to classroom devices, and the ability to purchase with purchase orders (POs) rather than credit cards.
Google Play’s worldwide downloads in the first quarter of 2015 were approximately 70 percent higher than the iOS App Store, according to App Annie60. The firm drew data from its App Intelligence tool as the basis for its Market Q1 2015 Index.
1. The growth in Google Play downloads is an increase of 60 percent from the third quarter of last year.
2. iOS App Store’s worldwide revenue in the first quarter of 2015 was about 70 percent higher than on Google Play, up from about 60 percent in the third quarter of 2014.
3. In the first quarter of 2015, Education apps on Google Play saw the second highest absolute revenue gain over the fourth quarter of 2014, after Games, overtaking Entertainment.
4. iOS downloads in China overtook those in the United States.
5. Mexico overtook South Korea and now ranks among the top five countries by quarterly Google Play downloads.
Via the Admin Console, administrators have full control over which Google Play for Education materials are available to teachers and students. Teachers can then share selected materials with their students as desired. Google appears to have a strategy of blending the Android and Chromebook environments with the App Runtime for Chrome (Beta). The new project allows Android apps on to run on Chrome OS.
In order to use Google Play for Education, schools need to:
• Be located in the U.S. and
• Have Chromebooks or tablets with a management license61.
The international element of Google Play for Education is not yet in place, yet Google is sure to bring this educational content to a broader international audience (such as emerging markets and Asia) in the near future.
GPE’s release followed GAFE, considered by many to be a direct challenge to Apple’s footprint in the classroom.62 The release is seen as, “one of the most education-relevant announcements that has been made63” due to its educator-friendly focus.
59 http://www.androidpolice.com/2013/11/13/google-play-for-education-has-officially-launched-lets-developers-easily-get-their-apps-into-the- classroom/ 60 http://www.fiercedeveloper.com/story/app-annie-google-play-downloads-70-higher-q1-ios/2015-04-27 61 https://support.google.com/edu/play/answer/6056739?rd=1 62 http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/13/google-challenges-apples-dominance-in-schools-with-google-play-for-education-now-shipping-on-new- tablets/ 63 http://www.edudemic.com/what-to-know-about-google-play-for-education/
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Apps and Content GPE includes apps and content for Chrome and Android devices. Materials sort by grade and topic, align with common core standards, and emphasize the 4 “C’s” of 21st Century Skills: Creativity, Critical Thinking, Collaboration, Communication. Materials are for K-12 classrooms and include content in: English Language Arts, World Languages, Mathematics, Science, Social Science, Elective, Open Education Resources (OER), and Tools.
Apps in GPE are stringently controlled so that educators can have confidence in their purchases. Google has established a third-party network of educators64 to review all apps to ensure they meet all the criteria and to assign them to appropriate standards for search tags. In addition, Google is paying teachers to review apps in use, and those apps are tagged with a yellow badge. Educators then click into an app to dig deeper — seeing the grades and Common Core standards it matches and reading reviews for Google Play to gauge popular opinion. Some apps also feature a Teacher Tip written by a teacher who’s already used the app in their class, giving other educators practical ideas for incorporating the apps into their own lessons.
Deploying apps is simple: just tapping the admin tablet to the new tablet. Students are each assigned an Apps for Education cloud account and all apps back up to their individual account to save work. Books are deployed and read on the Google Play Books app, which can handle both ePubs and PDFs. Educators can send content to an individual student by entering their individual accounts or email addresses, or to a group of students, a whole classroom or an entire school through Google Groups. The books that teachers assign will be visible to students in their personal libraries at play.google.com/books, and videos will be viewable at play.google.com/ edu/videos. Apps can be uninstalled and reassigned remotely.
Integration Google Apps can easily be supplemented with third-party services for customized tools or content. They can be integrated with a school’s primary system for identities, directories, or learning management in order to provide a comprehensive experience. Third-party tools, for instance, can be used to automatically create accounts for new students or teachers within minutes and fit into existing practices or workflows.65
The third-party apps available in Google Apps Marketplace and through the Google Admin console can integrate with Google Apps data.66 Apps that integrate with mail have access to Gmail data. Sidebar gadgets utilizing HTML and JavaScript web applications can extend Gmail with additional functionality and content-rich data displays. Contextual gadgets draw information from the web utilizing the contents of an email message. Apps that integrate with Google Calendar have access to Google Calendar data — including invitations and events — while those that integrate with Google+ have access to Google+ data, including posts, comments, and circles. The Google+ API allows apps to write posts to the stream and read public posts, domain-restricted
64 http://www.zdnet.com/google-launches-play-store-for-education-7000023184/ 65 https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NrlRPHNOfk5aYyUcj5u_x0f4NiXEEt3iSGItF4SEvq0/edit 66 https://support.google.com/a/answer/181972?hl=en
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posts, posts limited to circles, comments on a post, names of a user’s circles and the membership of each circle, and a merged list of the members of the user’s circles with no circle information. Apps that integrate with Google Drive can access and manipulate user data stored with Google Drive files, including Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides. This grants them the ability to programmatically match keywords or metadata to retrieve documents, modify sharing permissions, review or publish a document’s revision history, etc.
Google added an “app store,” of sorts, to Google Drive that lets users find Drive-enabled third-party apps from within the service.67 Once these apps are installed, they appear in the Create menu so that users don’t have to search for Drive-enabled apps in the Chrome Web Store.
These third-party apps appear at the top of the Create menu and with a “Connect Your Apps” button at the bottom connecting users to new Drive-connected apps.
Unbundled Apps On April 30, 2014, Google broke out its Doc, Sheets, and Slides apps — originally bundled as part of Google Drive — as standalone apps for Android68.
“While the Drive app is a convenient place to store your stuff, we want to make it easier for you to quickly find, edit and create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations on the go,” said Brian Levee, a product manager for Google.69
The Google Drive app redirects users to the individual apps when they want to edit or create a document. Drive continues to manage Google storage, but all app creation and editing is now done within the standalone apps.
Other Tools Chrome Browser Chrome for Education offers educators and administrators more than 100 policies. Auto- updates provide the latest security fixes or manual updates for more control, and IT staff has the ability to control which applications, extensions and plug-ins teachers and students receive. Administrators can also deploy a private web store with custom and curated apps, manage compatibility of older apps, and more.
67 http://techcrunch.com/2013/02/08/google-integrates-third-party-web-apps-more-deeply-into-google-drive/ 68 http://www.greenbot.com/article/2150020/google-launches-stand-alone-docs-sheets-and-slides-apps.html 69 http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/new-mobile-apps-for-docs-sheets-and.html
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Google Search for Education Google even offers “Search Education,”71 with lesson plans (picking the right search terms, understanding search results, narrowing a search, searching for evidence for research tasks, and evaluating credibility of sources), activities, tips, online lessons, “Google a Day Challenges” and live trainings to help students to become better searchers.
Google Maps Google Maps, Earth and Street View provide teachers and students with easy access to the world’s visual information.72 Google Maps is an intuitive and highly visual way to help students understand geography concepts, map reading, location, and distance measurement. Students can create collaborative maps, family heritage maps, plan trips using public transportation or bicycles, and compare communities across the world. Google Earth offers multiple ways to explore the world, the ocean, and beyond. Educators use it as a dynamic tool to better teach History (using Historical Imagery to stress how certain areas have changed), Science (explore the Earth’s biomes and habitats), Space Science (recent images from NASA are constantly updated), Math (to teach real-world math) and Geography (overlaying topographic maps to compare and contrast different types of geographic representations). Lastly, Google Street View lets students explore the world up close without leaving the classroom.
In addition, the Google Cultural Institute brings together millions of artifacts from multiple partners into virtual museums, such as with the World Wonders Project, The Art Project, and the Yad Vashem.
Chromebooks Chromebooks are devices whose primary purpose is to provide the best of Google — Search, Gmail, YouTube, Hangouts, and thousands of free apps. And all of these powerful tools are kept fresh with automatic updates. Chromebooks provide students, educators, and IT administrators with an intuitive, easy-to-manage, and (usually) affordable laptop for all their computing needs right out of the box.
An unclear economic climate forces educational institutions to seek less complex and more cost-effective methods of providing students, teachers, and staff with access to computing resources. Chromebooks are light, durable machines with a battery that typically lasts all day and an Internet connection that is instantly available. Google’s Chromebook is a form factor that usually ranges somewhere above a traditional netbook and slightly below a business portable.
The Chromebook runs on Google’s Chrome OS platform, and are designed to work almost entirely online. They run a lightweight operating system based on the company’s Chrome Internet browser and rely on online-based applications like Google’s word-processing and spreadsheet tools. That means the computers boot up in a flash, need little memory and don’t require software installations or upgrades.
70 http://www.google.com/chrome/education/browser/admin/ 71 http://www.google.com/insidesearch/searcheducation/ 72 http://maps.google.com/help/maps/education/learn/index.html#tab=geography
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With a Chromebook, a user can switch between users in seconds. This is perfect for situations where multiple students must share a machine. Teachers and students can collaborate at all times — just by signing in — and there’s no-hassle, secure end-user device sharing among students and staff. The devices simplify software and security management for school administrators and provides students and teachers with quick access to bountiful education resources and storage. Chromebooks also cost less than most high end tablets and according to the IDC, require 69 percent less labor to deploy and 92 percent less labor to support (based on research performed by IDC, August 2012, “Quantifying the Economic Value of Chromebooks for K–12 Education73”).
Administrators requiring a fully managed end-user device environment have the option of using Google’s Web- based Chromebook Management Console74. This console allows for the enforcement of device policies, inventory collection, and browser setting management, and when a user into their Chromebook and connects to the Internet, the latest updates are automatically pushed to the device. They offer easy application management because applications are not installed directly on the device. Instead, students and faculty can access any number of cloud-based applications such as Google Apps, and with third-party solutions they can access Microsoft Windows applications.
Chromebooks are specifically designed to be resistant to malware. Each web page and application runs in an isolated sandbox environment. That way, if a malware attack does occur, the malware is isolated and the operating system is protected. The boot process performs an integrity check that verifies that none of the system files have been altered. If any form of tampering is detected then the operating system automatically resets itself to a pristine state.
Chromebooks are in use today by over a thousand K-12 schools, and make an ideal one-to-one device because they’re more cost effective, easier to manage and maintain than traditional laptops or tablets. They are also a popular alternative to schools that are averse to potentially chaotic BYOD environments. With Chromebooks, student computers all have the same capabilities, so no student is working with an inferior tool and teachers can plan learning activities around these capabilities. The school network manager can easily manage connections and server and, if a student has a technical problem, support at the school is familiar with the hardware and/or other students in the class can help.
73 http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.wweps.com/en/us/intl/en/chrome/assets/education/pdf/IDC-WP- Quantifying.the.Economic.Value.of.Chromebooks.for.K-12.Education-082012.pdf 74 http://www.google.com/chromebook/business-education-management.html
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Chrome Web Store For educators who would like to move beyond the core GAFE suite, the Chrome Web Store provides more than a million apps, extensions, and add-ons. Unlike the GAFE suite, these are not all free, and unlike Google Play for Education, they have not been reviewed or otherwise aligned with educational content. The Chrome Web Store was launched in 2010 and in the past four years has grown to include extensions, apps, and most recently apps specifically for Android devices. The extra functionality added to Chrome and Google Apps for Education by extensions, apps, and add-ons increase the competitiveness of Chromebooks and Google devices in the education market and position Google to effectively deploy their own OS, running on top of any platform.
Extensions, Apps, and Add-Ons Extensions modify and enhance the functionality of the Chrome Browser. Bookmarking extensions like Diigo can aide in organization, productivity extensions like Snagit allow for easy screencasting right from the browser, while others extensions, such as Adblocker, help to create a more education-friendly user interface. Extensions are mostly developed by third parties but popular Google-created extensions include Hangouts, Google Voice, Google Translate, and Google Cast.
When Google changed the Chrome Extension Gallery into the Chrome Web Store in late 2010, it added the ability to install apps. Currently, there are two types of apps. Hosted Apps live in Chrome browser windows and are basically direct links to a website application. Metadata permissions are granted through Google streamlining the experience for the user. Packaged Apps, released in 2013, are native applications built with web technology in accordance with Content Security Policy (CSP) that launch directly from the desktop.75 Packaged Apps, which open in their own window, increase the usability of Chrome and Chromebooks by allowing for offline use and interaction with connected devices via Bluetooth or USB. Google Keep, the collaborative note-taking app, is a good example of a Packaged App developed by Google.
In addition to extensions and apps, Google Drive supports Add-Ons, extra features that extend the functionality of tools in the Google Apps for Education Suite. For example, EasyBib will facilitate the creation of a bibliography in Google Docs, Flubaroo will automatically grade responses from a Google Form, and teachers can use Doctopus to create copies and share assignments with groups of students. In contrast to extensions and apps, add-ons are not installed via the Chrome Web Store. Add-ons are managed from the menu bar within Google Apps.
Access and Security There is a section inside the Chrome Web Store marked “Education” which includes apps by category:
• Academic Resources
• Family
• Foreign Languages
• Teacher and Admin Tools
75 http://chrome.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-new-breed-of-chrome-apps.html
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However, once inside each section there is no handy search tool (as there is in GPE) or reviews by other educators, and no guarantee that the apps comply with COPPA, FERPA or other privacy requirements for students. Using the management console to manage devices can help to manage apps available to students on Chromebooks.
The Chrome Web Store has had two fairly notorious malware infiltrations76 that may make educators wary of purchases. This is not likely to change anytime soon because Google’s app checking is not like that of Apple or Windows, “Apple and Microsoft vet apps before allowing them to post on their app stores, but Google’s automated scanning procedure checks new apps after they appear in the store.”77 The sheer number and naming of the apps makes the Chrome Web Store difficult to browse or search, which makes Google Play for Education a more efficacious choice for teachers.
Partnerships with Publishers Google has recently collaborated with a handful of education publishers, including Pearson and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. These efforts have not been focused on the creation of educational content but have instead been focused on making digital education content available for purchase or rent in the Google Play store or within a publisher-created learning management systems (LMS).
Curation and Delivery of Content Google’s biggest foray into the world of collecting and curating actual educational content is YouTube. Google purchased YouTube in 2006 while still in its infancy, and since then, the amount of content on the site has exploded. Recently, Google and YouTube have been actively promoting the use of video in schools as an instructional strategy and a powerful tool for learning.
Google-Created Curricula Google has also steered clear of creating actual curricula for teachers to use with GAFE. While it does provide substantial resources for teachers looking to learn the tools, Google does not attempt to delineate specific ways to use the apps beyond occasional case studies.
Support and Professional Development Google’s model for getting its devices, platforms, and apps into schools starts with teachers. Through an overlapping web of online and face-to-face communities and learning resources, Google seeks to train and inspire a passionate base of teachers. Teachers develop use and instructional strategies for Google tools, give back to Google education community, and help turn more and more educators onto educational possibilities with GAFE, Chromebooks, and Android tablets.
76 http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034454/shopping-the-chrome-web-store-name-brands-knock-offs-and-no-shows.html 77 http://www.pcworld.com/article/2034454/shopping-the-chrome-web-store-name-brands-knock-offs-and-no-shows.html
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Google Education Forum An online community for teachers, IT admins, and school leaders78 with forums that can be accessed by user type (Teacher, Student, Administrator, Technical Support); by Product/Program (YouTube for Schools, Chrome and Chromebooks, Google Play for Education, Classroom, Google for Education Exams & Certifications, Google Apps for Education, etc.); by Device (Chrome Browser, Safari, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Android, iOS, etc.); or by question type.
Google Education Google+ Page The Google Education Google+ Page is for “people who are passionate about education and the role technology can play in it”79. The page — managed by the Google for Education team — includes news, resources, tips, events and comments regarding education initiatives, products, programs, and tools. As of April 22, 2015, the page had 1,004,631 followers and 69,541,551 views.
Google Apps for Education User Groups A community for IT admins or project managers to exchange best practices and resources.80 This public group, as of April 23, 2015, has 124,823 members. Areas include: Pedagogy & Research, Going Google, Google Classroom, Administration, Cpanel, Analytics, Resources, Products, Services, Marketplace, Devices, Google Play for Education, Hangouts, Tasks, G-Drive, G-Sites, Chrome, YouTube, Apps Scripts, Tutorial, Training, and others.
Training Certification Programs Google offers a range of certification options for educators and administrators to become Individually Qualified, a Certified Trainer, or a Certified Organization. By certifying an active and inspired group of educators, Google identifies and prepares teachers to promote and teach Google products at schools, workshops, and ed-tech conferences.
1. Google Certificate of Achievement: Teachers that pass the free, 30-multiple choice question Google Basics Exam achieve this certificate.
2. Google Educator: To become a Google Educator, teachers must pass a series of online exams.
3. Google Certified Teachers (GCT): Teachers interested in becoming a GCT, apply to attend a two-day Google Teacher Academy (GTA).
4. Google Education Trainers: Through an application process, Google recruits educators to conduct trainings on its behalf.
78 https://productforums.google.com/forum/#!forum/google-education 79 https://plus.google.com/+GoogleforEducation/about 80 https://plus.google.com/communities/101802680117484972712/stream/34291608-d296-439a-a72c-39c19a7102fa
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Strategy Google’s strategy, in general, could be summarized by the phrase “the first taste is free.” The Trojan Horse in Google’s attempt to dominate the education sector is Google Apps: offering cash-strapped schools a powerful array of free tools for education to push schools toward adoption. Tools include unlimited storage for anyone with a Google for Education account and Vault, an app for administrators.
In 2013, over 20 million students used Google Apps for education — an increase of 100% since 2010 — with over 7 million K-12 students throughout the United States adopting them.
“Education is a notoriously slow adopter of technology, but Google Apps is growing quickly, if not virally, doubling over the last two years. And the current 20 million users include seven million inside the U.S. alone — led by Oregon that adopted Google Apps in all K-12 classrooms in 2010.”81
Google’s Chromebook devices — basically delivery tools for Google Apps — are increasingly popular in schools. In the third quarter of 2014, schools ordered 715,000 Chromebooks compared with 702,000 iPads, according to market tracker IDC82. The quarter was the first time Chromebook shipments outpaced iPads in the education market, with Chromebooks as a whole accounting for a quarter of the educational market. The IDC cites low cost as a major factor as well as the need for a keyboard, particularly in the higher grades. Apple, though, isn’t out of the race yet. The company still has the largest selection of educational apps in its App Store (75,000 as of November 30, 2014) as well as iTunes U (a service that allows educators to share lectures and create custom courses).
The overall strategy is two-pronged: Educational institutions not only represent a huge market for Google Apps, but schools and colleges are where students get trained, start relying on, and form brand allegiances to productivity apps.83 If young people are having their first computer or computing device experience in the Google ecosystem, this experience — in many ways — will be hardwired into their expectations and preferences, paving the way for more Google interactions as adults.
Distribution Google has the Number One page ranking in the world, with over one billion search requirements daily. Apart from its search engine, Google is also known for its dynamic and varied Cloud computing solutions. Nearly 97% of the company’s income comes from advertising. Google has such a dominant footprint in key distribution channels such as search, browser, email, mobile, TV and video, that it cannot be ignored. Chromebook devices are available at numerous retail locations and e-tailers with discounts for bulk education purchases. Google Apps for Education are easily available for integration and distribution in the educational domain.
81 http://venturebeat.com/2013/05/18/schooled-by-google-how-google-apps-is-penetrating-education-infographic/ 82 http://9to5google.com/2014/11/30/chromebook-outsell-ipad-education/ 83 http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/28/google-apps-for-education-wins-two-more-states-rolls-out-training-tools-for-teachers/
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Resources i https://www.google.com/edu/it/
ii https://docs.google.com/document/d/16pGWXaoxC6CtVV1kZ0I9PgtSntZP80_2gWmaxKSLB18/ edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/16pGWXaoxC6CtVV1kZ0I9PgtSntZP80_2gWmaxKSLB18/ edit?usp=sharing
iii https://docs.google.com/document/d/16pGWXaoxC6CtVV1kZ0I9PgtSntZP80_2gWmaxKSLB18/edit?usp=sharing
iv https://roianalyst.alinean.com/idc/AutoLogin.do?d=847988795968028587
v https://roianalyst.alinean.com/idc/AutoLogin.do?d=847988795968028587
vi https://docs.google.com/document/d/1clRX-jGuxbhXgAyd-tZJhgyQ9BM9kH7DoHGJTKZZk0k/ edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1clRX-jGuxbhXgAyd-tZJhgyQ9BM9kH7DoHGJTKZZk0k/ edit?usp=sharing
vii https://docs.google.com/document/d/1clRX-jGuxbhXgAyd-tZJhgyQ9BM9kH7DoHGJTKZZk0k/edit?usp=sharing
viii https://www.google.com/edu/case-studies/
ix https://docs.google.com/a/clarity-innovations.com/file/d/0B__OTXR_u3RbZnRmVnNHeFdydlk/edithttps:// support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/3273084?hl=en
x https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/2636425?hl=en
xi https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NrlRPHNOfk5aYyUcj5u_x0f4NiXEEt3iSGItF4SEvq0/ edit?usp=sharinghttps://docs.google.com/document/d/1NrlRPHNOfk5aYyUcj5u_x0f4NiXEEt3iSGItF4SEvq0/ edit?usp=sharing
xii https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NrlRPHNOfk5aYyUcj5u_x0f4NiXEEt3iSGItF4SEvq0/edit?usp=sharing
xiii https://edudirectory.withgoogle.com/static/index.html#/https://edudirectory.withgoogle.com/static/index. html - /
xiv https://edudirectory.withgoogle.com/static/index.html - /
xv https://www.google.com/edu/trust/https://www.google.com/edu/trust/
xvi https://www.google.com/edu/trust/
xvii https://support.google.com/googleforwork/answer/6056650?hl=enhttps://support.google.com/ googleforwork/answer/6056650?hl=en
xviii https://support.google.com/googleforwork/answer/6056650?hl=en
xix https://support.google.com/googleforwork/answer/6056694https://support.google.com/googleforwork/ answer/6056694
xx https://support.google.com/googleforwork/answer/6056694
xxi https://support.google.com/vault/answer/2462365?hl=enhttps://support.google.com/vault/ answer/2462365?hl=en
xxii https://support.google.com/vault/answer/2462365?hl=en
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xxiii http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/Student%20Privacy%20and%20Online%20Educational%20 Services%20%28February%202014%29.pdfhttp://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/Student Privacy and Online Educational Services %28February 2014%29.pdf
xxiv http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/Student Privacy and Online Educational Services %28February 2014%29.pdf
xxv http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.htmlhttp://www.edweek.org/ew/ articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.html
xxvi http://www.k12blueprint.com/content/1two1-richland-county-school-district-twohttp://www.k12blueprint. com/content/1two1-richland-county-school-district-two
xxvii http://www.k12blueprint.com/content/1two1-richland-county-school-district-two
xxviii http://www.techrepublic.com/article/32000-chromebooks-how-a-virginia-school-system-bet-on-googles-pc- platform/http://www.techrepublic.com/article/32000-chromebooks-how-a-virginia-school-system-bet-on-googles- pc-platform/
xxix http://www.techrepublic.com/article/32000-chromebooks-how-a-virginia-school-system-bet-on-googles-pc- platform/
xxx http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2014/07/maryland_district_approves_big.htmlhttp://blogs. edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2014/07/maryland_district_approves_big.html
xxxi http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/DigitalEducation/2014/07/maryland_district_approves_big.html
xxxii https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-08-05-nj-school-chooses-chromebooks-over-ipadshttps://www.edsurge. com/n/2014-08-05-nj-school-chooses-chromebooks-over-ipads
xxxiii https://www.edsurge.com/n/2014-08-05-nj-school-chooses-chromebooks-over-ipads
xxxiv https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/tablets/pdfs/KIPP_Case_Study. pdfhttps://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/tablets/pdfs/KIPP_Case_Study.pdf
xxxv https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/tablets/pdfs/KIPP_Case_Study.pdf
xxxvi https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/tablets/pdfs/Google-Play-for- Education-Hillsborough.pdfhttps://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/tablets/pdfs/ Google-Play-for-Education-Hillsborough.pdf
xxxvii https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/tablets/pdfs/Google-Play-for- Education-Hillsborough.pdf
xxxviii http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/04/28/oregon-schools-adopt-google-apps-to-save-cash-expand-ed- tech-offerings/http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/04/28/oregon-schools-adopt-google-apps-to-save-cash-expand- ed-tech-offerings/
xxxix http://www.eschoolnews.com/2010/04/28/oregon-schools-adopt-google-apps-to-save-cash-expand-ed- tech-offerings/
xl http://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/classroom/pdf/41205_Google_ Clarkstown_OS_140502_ps.pdfhttp://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/edu/classroom/ pdf/41205_Google_Clarkstown_OS_140502_ps.pdf
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HP Education Solutions
HP Education Solutions
HP is one of the more prominent companies in the educational hardware arena due to the low cost, variety, and availability of their devices. The company has made a serious effort to court schools by providing them with useful software and other resources to support technology integration.
SOFTWARE HP provides several educational applications84, some at no cost to educators, with the purchase of HP computers.
Management Software HP Classroom Manager 2.0 (HPCM)85: The Classroom Manager provides teachers with a range of digital tools to manage HP PCs and Android devices from a teacher or technician console. The software allows teachers to:
• Take control of student desktops to deliver content, as well as restrict applications, hardware devices, and web access;
• Form student chat groups to discuss topics either one-on-one or in groups;
• Watch student progress and promote engagement by monitoring open applications, web usage, and even student keyboard strokes and keyword tracking to ensure comprehension. Teachers can even capture and review previous student activities with web, application, IM, and printing histories;
• Share student work across all systems;
• Organize lessons and student work; and
• Customize formative assessment tools, such as just-in-time quizzes, student screenshots, and adding quick notes to journals from drop-down menus.
The HPCM is also designed to support the Common Core State Standards by providing tools that address the literacy skills and critical thinking required to prepare students for college and career.
84 http://www8.hp.com/us/en/hp-news/press-release.html?wireId=1913287#.VTZis5TF9TM 85 http://www8.hp.com/us/en/classmanager/overview.html
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• The Collaborative Whiteboard is dedicated to improving student literacy in history, science and technical subjects by giving teachers the tools to deepen classroom discussions and explanations through sharing and annotating screens.
• The Virtual Language Lab allows teachers to monitor, in real-time, what students are listening to and how they are pronouncing words and sentences so they can intervene as necessary to provide differentiated instruction.
• The Digital Journal allows teachers to tie together content covered in and out of the classroom by utilizing key words, the interactive whiteboard, and polling. It uses key words, the interactive whiteboard, quick polling, and individual testing console results to personalize student journals.
Curriculum-Based Software Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary: This dictionary that does not require an Internet connection is designed to help students develop their English language skills. In addition to definitions, the dictionary provides context and audio pronunciation of words.
Overdrive This application that allows people to borrow e-books and audiobooks from local libraries and other sources also provides access to a custom library of books curated by HP.
Pasco Sparkvue for HP85 This software supports an active science-learning environment by turning HP Education Edition devices into tools that collect data through sensors. The application also provides data collection, visualization, and analysis tools to help students develop scientific thinking processes. Although highlighted by HP, the app is also available free of charge for Chromebooks and iPad and Android tablets.
HP Remote Graphics Software34 This application comes with the HP ZBook 17 Mobile Workstation and allows students to increase their productivity when working with sophisticated graphics.
Link Technology This app available from the Apple App and Google Play stores allows the creation and accessing of images with embedded QR codes enabling a seamless connection between print and digital media. This app is especially useful in conjunction with HP’s Print-on-Demand Textbooks.
National Education Technology Assessment This program provides tools and resources to help schools assess their technology interventions and develop approaches that maximize student achievement. Google Play for Education: Users of HP’s Android tablets have access to all the educational apps available in the Google Play Store.
85 http://www.pasco.com/family/sparkvue/
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Chrome Apps for the Classroom Users of HP’s Chromebooks can download educational apps created specifically for educational settings. Purchasers of 20 or more licenses receive a bulk discount.
Bundling Options The HP School Pack that comes preinstalled with all HP Education Edition tablets and notebooks includes the following software:
• HP Classroom Manager;
• One-year Absolute Data Protection Basic to protect student devices and data
• Oxford Advanced Learners Dictionary;• Overdrive with a library of books curated by HP; and
• Sparkvue software that supports scientific inquiry through data collection and analysis.
Marketing Strategies and Resources HP’s marketing strategy for K-12 education focuses on how HP notebooks and tablets combined with bundled software can improve student performance while controlling costs. Their website includes several pages focused on the use of HP devices in K-12 classrooms.
HP Education87:
• Overview: Describes the purpose of HP’s education program
• Educational Solutions: Includes basic information about the resources and devices HP provides.
• Products: Lists HP’s software and devices specifically developed for K-12 education.
• Teachers: Describes online courses available for teachers.
• Education Leaders: Addresses information about HP devices useful to administrators, such as financing and the impact on instruction.
Benefits88:
• Support and training
• Support for an active learning environment
• Professional development for 1:1 programs
• Case studies
HP’s educational blog, Teaching, Learning and Technology89, discusses current technology issues and appears to be published every few months.
87 www8.hp.com/us/en/solutions/education/overview.html 88 http://government.hp.com/solutions.aspx?agencyid=135 89 http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Teaching-Learning-amp-Technology/bg-p/148#.VS1DDJTF9TM
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HP and Common Core State Standards HP’s marketing efforts place a good deal of emphasis on how their devices and resources can support instruction and assessment related to Common Core State Standards. To that end, they provide several PDF s related to this topic, such as the following:
• HP Common Core Excellence Online Courses90: Introduces online courses available to help teachers meet Common Core State Standards in literacy and mathematics.
• HP Classroom Manager and the Common Core91: Describes the features of HPCM that support the Common Core State Standards.
• Make the World Your Classroom92: Summarizes the resources that HP offers related to the Common Core State Standards.
HP and STEM Education HP gives some emphasis to the role that HP devices can play in STEM education through blog posts93 and case studies94. An HP STEM initiative called Catalyst95 appears to have ended around 2013.
HP Products in the Classroom In 2012 River Dell Regional School District96 in New Jersey worked with an HP educational strategist to implement their 1:1 computing program at the high school level in 2012. The strategist helped the technology director work with administrators and teachers on selecting devices, creating infrastructure, and professional development. The step-by-step strategy they developed helped them transition toward a more student-centered learning environment. Teachers and administrators report increased student engagement and enthusiasm, and the district was named to Newsweek’s list of America’s Best High Schools in 2012.
Distribution Purchases of HP tablets and notebooks are made through contracts with states or agencies. A list of available contracts97 is provided for purchasing agents to search.
90 http://www8.hp.com/h20195/v2/GetPDF.aspx%2F4AA5-0459ENN.pdf 91 http://h20195.www2.hp.com/V2/GetPDF.aspx/4aa4-9871ENW 92 http://www.insight.com/insighton/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2014/04/HP_CommonCore_brochure.pdf 93 http://h30507.www3.hp.com/t5/Teaching-Learning-amp-Technology/New-OECD-Case-Study-Sparking-Innovation-in-STEM-Education-with/ba- p/137039#.VS1IpZTF9TM 94 http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/getpdf.aspx/4AA5-4489ENW.pdf?ver=1.0 95 http://cuseinkenya.syr.edu/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/HP-brochure.pdf 96 http://hub.insight.com/i/398206-river-dell-hp-case-study/1 97 http://government.hp.com/contracts.aspx?agencyid=135 For Internal Use 1001 SE Water Avenue Suite 400 Portland, Oregon 97214 503 248–4300 clarity-innovations.com
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Lenovo Education Solutions
Lenovo Education Solutions
Lenovo is a Chinese multinational computer technology company that designs, develops, manufactures and sells personal computers, tablet computers, smartphones, workstations, servers, electronic storage devices, IT management software and smart televisions. In 2014, Lenovo was the world’s largest personal computer vendor by unit sales.98
Lenovo acquired IBM’s personal computer business in 2005 and agreed to acquire its Intel-based server business in 2014. Lenovo is partnering with Microsoft on their Shape the Future initiative99 that provides authorized distributors a select list of products at aggressive, reduced rates for K-12 public school customers.
Lenovo’s forays into the education space are mostly through the selling of devices such as notebooks, workstations, desktops, and featured products such as the ThinkPad, IdeaPad Yoga, and Notebook Chromebook. The company’s messaging speaks to personalized and standards-based solution that are customized and built for the classroom. In terms of learning tools, the company seems to rely on their devices as a portal to cloud- computing solutions.
THIRD PARTY SOLUTIONS
webNetwork by Stoneware This software program creates a unified cloud experience that seamlessly connects students, teachers, and schools. It promises better user experience across diverse devices and connections, superior manageability and administration, and easy deployment and integration.
This Lenovo-owned company features a number of case studies showcasing the software in real-world education settings. Arizona’s Florence Unified School District needed easier access to school resources and adopted webNetwork to “privatize” the cloud by keeping all the school’s applications and data on the district’s servers. Indianapolis Public Schools in Indiana needed stronger data security and secure remote access. Now, webNetwork presented a flexible, web-enabled “private cloud” solution that stands as a powerful hub inside the
98 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2960125 99 http://www.lenovopartnernetwork.com/resources/verticals/education
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district’s entire IT infrastructure. Godfrey-Lee Public Schools in Michigan needed to create a 100% web-based environment that enabled students and faculty to access all of its network services, applications and files from any device, anywhere, at anytime. Stoneware’s webNetwork helped them secure and unify the cloud. And New York’s Union-Endicott Public Schools shifted the school’s Windows, web and hosted applications from individual machines to a secure, centralized datacenter, housed on Union-Endicott servers, using webDesktop.
WINDOWS 8 APPS FOR EDUCATION
Lenovo Windows 8 Laptops and Tablets Lenovo Windows 8 laptops and tablets rely on the growing library of Windows 8 Apps for Schools, many of which are available for free. These apps can differentiate instruction, foster 21st century skills, meet Common Core and state standards, and streamline lesson planning, assessment, and classroom management. The Windows 8 app library for schools includes popular products such as BrainPOP®, Khan Academy®, and Stack the States™, as well as digital textbooks and innovative new apps such as CK-12© math and science, iTooch, and 21st Century Learning Design. Many apps are available at no charge, and many have been developed first for Windows 8, with extensive support for Common Core and state standards.
BrainPOP apps provide schools with free as well as subscription-based content on topics across the curriculum. They are aligned to Common Core and state standards and are searchable by topic or standard, with special apps available for K-3, ESL, and Spanish-speaking students. Khan Academy provides free access to high-quality video tutorials and assessments on math, science, and history. It brings lessons to life even for tough topics like advanced geometry and gives teachers great visibility into student progress. CK-12 Foundation are free high-quality math and science apps that deliver over 5,000 STEM concepts in different modalities such as video, practice, assessment, and real-world applications; collaborative class and study groups; and interactive practice. Other apps that Lenovo call out for education as part of the Windows 8 Teacher Collection include 21st Century Learning Design (a collaborative project with Microsoft that assesses content against the six dimensions of 21st century learning), Markbook (for creating complex assessments and detailed reports), Lesson Plan Manager (for creating, delivering, and reporting on lessons), and Scaffolder (for mapping out assessments, projects, or processes and exporting to other formats.)
Chrome App Packs Chrome OS-friendly Lenovo devices used to include Chrome App Packs specifically designed for elementary, middle, and high schools. As of February 2015, App Packs for Education were discontinued, with users advised to use Google Play for Education. Chrome App Packs were curated groups of popular applications from the Chrome Web Store tailored to meet students’ needs, available at a discount for bulk app purchases, and organized by category and grade level. Many of these apps integrated with Google Drive. When force installed, they appeared on students’ managed Chrome devices. They were available either for free, for “freemium” (free yet with advanced features available for a price) or paid.
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Android for Mobile Lenovo’s Yoga Tablet line is comprised of Android-compatible tablets that utilize Google’s popular mobile platform, offering impressive battery life and stylish design. These tablets features quad-core processors and are available with 8- or 10-inch screens. The Android-based IdeaTab series is another line of compact tablets, including models with a 7-inch screen and 16GB hard drive.
In the classroom, Android thrives on the strength of Google Play for Education. Android syncs with these apps to create a seamless computing experience from Android-based device to Android-based device.
Lenovo released Chromebooks squarely at the education market in the spring of 2014, including the 11.6-inch ThinkPad Yoga 11e Chromebook and ThinkPad 11e Chromebook. Lenovo made a point of noting that the new devices include “rubber bumpers, reinforced ports, and stronger hinges” to protect from wear and tear in the classroom.100
Michael Schmedlen, Lenovo’s worldwide director of education, said in a 2012 interview that Android was Lenovo’s mobile platform of choice.101
Intel Partnership The Classmate+ PC was a 10-inch notebook targeting K-8. Lenovo partnered and contracted with Intel to use Intel’s Learning Series Software as an add-on to Lenovo’s hardware, providing an entire suite of applications. This software was designed to make learning and e-learning easier for students and teachers.
“As the fastest-growing PC company in education, we are committed to creating education solutions that improve schools’ efficiency, as well as leading initiatives to evaluate how technology can measurably improve learning outcomes,” said Michael Schmedlen, director of Worldwide Education, Lenovo in the Classmate+ announcement. “Our work with Intel to offer products like the Lenovo Classmate+ PC will create more opportunities for K-8 administrators, teachers and students to realize the benefits of technology-enriched 1:1 learning experiences.”102
The Classmate is targeted at emerging markets. At launch, it was a Windows 7 device only.
Strategy In the summer of 2012, Lenovo announced that it was targeting Dell’s share of sales to U.S. schools and governments to keep growing after boosting its North American corporate business.103 Thomas Looney, vice president and general manager for Lenovo North America, said that Lenovo could achieve “hyper-growth” of more than 20 percent a year in computer sales to elementary and secondary schools as well as local, state and
100 http://9to5google.com/2014/01/29/google-play-for-education-gets-new-10-1-samsung-galaxy-tab-chromebooks-from-lenovo-toshiba/ 101 http://www.wiredacademic.com/2012/08/interview-laptop-maker-lenovo-talks-strategy-for-increasing-educational-sales/ 102 http://notebooks.com/2011/03/10/lenovo-launches-new-netbook-for-the-classroom-available-to-schools-now/ 103 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-08-05/lenovo-targets-dell-share-of-government-education-sales For Internal Use 1001 SE Water Avenue Suite 400 Portland, Oregon 97214 503 248–4300 clarity-innovations.com
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Lenovo Education Solutions
federal government agencies. “[Dell] are the weakest kid in the playground right now,” Looney said. “Dell is highly penetrated in K-12, federal, state and local. That’s why I’m attacking now in those segments of the market. I can price very aggressively, and I’ve got the right products.”
The ThinkPad series of laptops, designed for elementary- and secondary-school students and introduced in 2013, are a major part of Lenovo’s strategy in infiltrating education sector. Public schools in New York City, according to Looney, had bought “tens of thousands” of the devices. Lenovo’s focus on education seems clear: Apple, with the iPad, and Google, with Chromebooks, have proved that there is money to be made by catering to the education sector and selling mass quantities of devices. And it is logical to assume that this high profile in the classroom would spill over into the consumer space.
The company began to vertically integrate the procurement of some parts, while still relying on partners for others (such as Intel for semiconductors and Microsoft for operating software). The key was to achieve enough scale so that the company could drive down prices, giving it a structural cost advantage over its competitors.104 In 2013, Lenovo established electronics assembly in the United States, in a testing and distribution facility in North Carolina, to assemble ThinkPads. Customers include the World Bank, the New York City Department of Education, the United Nations, and the U.S. Air Force.
The company has been spending much of its R&D resources (roughly $1 million per year) on creating computers ideal for classrooms and heavy student use including web cam apps, a microscope attachment and a lap-cam.105 In 2012, Michael Schmedlen, Lenovo’s worldwide director of education and David Harris, worldwide ThinkPad product manager, discussed their education strategy in an interview with WiredAcademic.
“We help schools around the world improving learning outcomes and increase efficiency of schools themselves. We offer products specific to education…. We’ve developed a taxonomy for learning106 … We went from being the number 4 player in education PCs two years ago to number 1 in education globally… We are focused on K-12 in markets like US, Germany, and France… Over the last four quarters recorded by IDC, we shipped 3.9 million desktops and laptops to education customers around the world. Last quarter, that netted us a 20% share (of the education market).”
104 http://www.strategy-business.com/article/00274?pg=all 105 http://www.wiredacademic.com/2012/08/interview-laptop-maker-lenovo-talks-strategy-for-increasing-educational-sales/ 106 http://blog.lenovo.com/en/blog/taxonomy-of-academic-technology
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Schmedlen said that Lenovo have become “activist” investors in educational research, with multiple projects with multiple universities including MIT and the University of Oxford, studying issues such as how tablet intervention helps students with learning disabilities, how to enable distance learning across multiple continents, and the best balance on professional development in person and online.
Lenovo is taking a globalized approach to education and is heavily involved with the UN Fund for Education on issues of education reform. Besides technology, professional development is also a focus for the company.
Distribution Purchases of Lenovo devices are made through contracts with states or agencies.
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Microsoft Education Solutions
Microsoft Education Solutions
Microsoft’s share of education device sales has been experiencing a downward trend. In 2014, Windows PCs accounted for 68.4% of the market, down from 72.3% in 2013, and 75% in 2012.107 Realizing that the education market is more competitive than ever before, Microsoft is actively strategizing ways it can attract and hold onto young users. The latest Windows devices blur the line between personal computers and tablets, attempting to reach all use-cases with one solution. The more and more frequently encountered two-in-one devices combine touchscreens and digital inking with the familiar desktop of fully functioning computers and are available for a range of budgets.
Microsoft software seems to be undergoing a similar transformation. It is making its full office applications available for students and teachers for little or no cost and has fully embraced online mobile versions of its software allowing for real-time collaboration and anywhere anytime access to documents. Microsoft is also busy developing, acquiring, and marketing new software for education users.
Office 365 First launched in 2011, Office 365 combines Microsoft software and services in one bundled package.108 As opposed to office programs being purchased outright with a one-time fee, users purchase monthly or annual subscriptions that ensure software is kept up to date. In addition to the traditional office programs, Office 365 includes cloud services such as cloud storage and access to Office mobile apps. Various forms of the program target personal, business, and education use.
Education Plans At the moment, there are two primary Office 365 plans for education: Office 365 Education E1 and Office 365 Education E3.109 The following table summarizes some of the key characteristics of each plan:
107 http://www.informationweek.com/software/enterprise-applications/microsoft-google-and-apple-education-smackdown/d/d-id/1316109 108 108 http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2386447,00.asp 109 https://products.office.com/en-us/academic/compare-office-365-education-plans
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OFFICE 365 EDUCATION E1 OFFICE 365 EDUCATION E3 Cost Free for students and faculty Students: $2.50 user/month Faculty: $4.50 user/month Full installed Office applications on up No Yes to five devices per user Online versions of Office Yes Yes Cloud storage with OneDrive 1 TB 1 TB Extra web-based services including Yes Yes email, calendar, contacts, IM, chat, and private social network Enterprise management Apps such as No Yes Group Policy, Telemetry, and Shared Computer Activation
In addition to these two plans Microsoft offers its Office 365 ProPlus plan to the education market.110 Office 365 ProPlus provides users with the latest versions of full Office applications.
Starting in December of 2013, Microsoft launched its Student Advantage program. The Student Advantage program was the first of a series of programs giving full Microsoft Office software on up to five devices to students who belong to an academic institution that purchases Office 365 ProPlus or E3 for its faculty. Exactly one year later, in December of 2014, Microsoft made it even easier for students to install full Office programs on up to five devices. In addition to providing free downloads to students, Microsoft also extended the opportunity for faculty and staff at qualifying institutions. Instead of having access to Office 365 set by IT staff, qualifying students and staff can simply go check eligibility, enroll, and install programs at www.office.com/getOffice365.111 Microsoft is heavily advertising the opportunity and assisting schools in getting the word out with promotional guides, posters, email templates, social media posts, and ads.112 These efforts to reduce prices and increase access can be seen as an attempt by Microsoft to gain access to a new generation of computer users amidst fierce competition.
Office Microsoft is not about to stop selling its core Office programs to schools. While education may be moving towards web-based, cloud storage solution, many schools and educators still rely on the full desktop Office applications including:
• Word
• Excel
• PowerPoint
• Outlook
• OneNote
• Access 110 https://products.office.com/en-us/academic/compare-office-365-education-plans#a 111 http://blogs.technet.com/b/educloud/archive/2014/09/22/new-offerings-self-service-student-advantage-signup-for-students-and-faculty-staff- office-365-proplus-benefit.aspx 112 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office-students-marketing-resources/default.aspx#fbid=GtMDn0Akxb7 113 http://news.microsoft.com/2013/10/15/new-study-reveals-most-important-skills-for-students/ 114 http://blog.shi.com/2013/11/21/microsoft-gives-students-free-access-to-office-365-through-new-student-advantage-program/
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Microsoft also frequently refers to an IDC study it commissioned in 2013. The study found that Microsoft Office proficiency is the third most requested job skill in 60 high-growth, high-wage career fields.113 Microsoft cites this study to reinforce its assertion that Office needs to be used in schools to “help students gain the skills and technical acumen necessary to pursue future occupation in high growth career fields.”114
Mobile Apps
Microsoft is expanding its desktop Office software versions to reflect the transition away from traditional PCs to mobile devices. Versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are available for free on Windows phones and tablets. They are also available on iPhones, iPad, Android Phones, and Android tablets. The apps can be installed free of charge on mobile devices and used to view, create, and edit Office documents. When users login with an Office 365 subscription, more advanced features are made available. Office Online Microsoft also stepped into the world of lighter, web-based versions of its most popular Office tools when it announced Office Web Apps in 2008.115 In subsequent years, these online versions have introduced features that are similar to Google’s core suite of tools including co-authoring, auto-save to cloud-based storage, and real-time collaboration.
In February 2014, Microsoft rebranded Web Apps as Office Online making all of the following apps available from one location:116
• Word Online
• OneNote Online
• Excel Online
• Outlook.com
• PowerPoint Online
• OneDrive
• People
• Calendar
While the Office Online apps closely resemble their Office counterparts, they do have fewer features. However, compared to their Google counterparts, many reviews that Microsoft web-based apps have better functionality. For example, Eric Ravenscraft of lifehacker.com writes, “All in all, Microsoft has created an impressive — and more importantly, professional — editing suite. It probably won’t replace your desktop (at least without accessories), but it’s powerful enough that it can give Google’s software a run for its money on mobile. In some cases, it’s the only usable option between the two.”117 That being said, given Google’s early emergence into cloud-based computing and increased popularity of Chromebooks in schools, Microsoft is still playing catch-up.
New Tools for the Classroom In recent years, Microsoft has been acquiring, developing, and promoting new software for the classroom. With
115 http://news.microsoft.com/2008/10/28/microsoft-to-extend-office-to-the-browser/ 116 http://www.pcworld.com/article/2099502/meet-office-online-microsofts-slightly-tweaked-office-web-apps-replacement.html 117 http://lifehacker.com/battle-of-the-mobile-office-suites-microsoft-office-vs-1657871272
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these new products, Microsoft is reaching out to tech savvy educators and teachers and showcasing how these tools can transform learning.
OneNote While not new, Microsoft has been heavily promoting OneNote as a powerful productivity tool for teachers and students. Although OneNote is part of Office, starting in the spring of 2014, Microsoft made the full version of OneNote free on all devices.118 OneNote can help teachers organize their class content in one single, tabbed notebook. By sharing the notebook with students, they can share notes and resources, deliver curriculum and create spaces for students to collaborate on projects. Versions of OneNote for mobile devices and tablet PCs seamlessly integrate digital inking and typeset while allowing users to quickly clip pictures, audio, and video into notebooks. Microsoft recently released a website, onenoteforteachers.com, to introduce teachers to the tool and how to use it in the classroom. OneNote in Education has its own Office blog and even the ten interactive guides to using OneNote in the classroom have been translated into five common, global languages demonstrating Microsoft’s intent to promote OneNote for education markets on an international scale.119
In the fall of 2014, Microsoft also released two apps that extend the functionality of OneNote for teachers and administrators: OneNote Class Notebook Creator and One Note Staff Notebook. Both apps need to be added to OneDrive or SharePoint by an Office 365 administrator.
• OneNote Class Notebook Creator: Accessed through a teacher’s OneDrive account, the app facilitates the process of creating individual notebooks for each of a teacher’s classes. Teachers use pre-assembled classroom permissions to quickly add students and create three notebook spaces: a Collaboration Space, a Content Library, and Student Notebooks. In the Collaboration Space, all students can view and edit the contents of the notebook. This allows the whole classroom and groups of students to engage in collaborative research, discussions, and projects. In the Content Library, students can view but not edit. This is an ideal location for teachers to share resources including notes and assignments. Students can copy items from the Content Library into their personal notebooks. Student Notebooks are private areas created for each student. While the teacher can see all Student Notebooks, each individual student can only view their own. Within their individual notebooks, students can turn in assignments for teacher grading, facilitating a paperless classroom.
• OneNote Staff Notebook: The OneNote Staff Notebook is similar to the Class Notebook but is geared towards teacher leaders managing staff and professional learning activities. The Staff Notebook includes a Collaboration Space for collaborative professional learning activities, a Content Library for important resources, and Teacher Notebooks for personal content like evaluations or email documentation.
Office Mix Office Mix is a free add-in for PowerPoint developed in 2014 specifically for education. Once added to PowerPoint from the Office Mix website, it immediately adds the ability to transform traditional slide decks into interactive presentations to PowerPoint 2013. Teachers can record and embed audio, video, and live handwriting to their slides. In addition, teachers can add polls, comprehension checks, and simulations. After being published, students can access Office Mix presentations from any device using unique website URLs and progress through
118 http://winsupersite.com/office-2013/its-official-onenote-now-free-everyone 119 http://blogs.office.com/2015/02/26/onenote-teachers-interactive-guides-now-translated-global-classrooms/
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presentations at their own pace. As they complete polls and quizzes, data is sent back to the teacher to help monitor progress.
Microsoft presents Office Mix as a powerful tool to help with flipped instruction, a relatively recent instructional method that changes how content is delivered. Instead of delivering content in class via a lecture, students receive instruction at home through short tutorials. This frees up class time for collaborative activities or discussions fostering deeper student learning. For example, a teacher may assign the viewing of an Office Mix on the Pythagorean theorem for homework. Students can watch the presentation as many times as they need to feel comfortable with the content and complete some example problems. The following day, the teacher uses class time to answer student questions before assigning a group project asking students to research and recreate Pythagoras’s proof of his theorem.
Sway Sway is another presentation tool recently developed by Microsoft. Sway is free, and operates across all devices through a web browser and, while not necessarily developed for the education market, has many applications for teaching and learning. Teachers and students can easily drag and drop content into presentations called sways and then reorganize the content into what is essentially a one page website. Sway helps creators along the process by making it easy to locate content from within the app and using an algorithm to automatically format pictures and text in an appealing manner.
Sway is still in preview mode in order to gather feedback from users. Microsoft plans to use this feedback to continue to adjust and improve the final product.120 In addition to the web-based platform, an iOS version of Sway is already available and an Android version is on the way.
Yammer Also in 2014, Microsoft extended its Yammer Enterprise service to education customers free of charge.121 Yammer, a private social networking service, allows schools and districts to centrally manage groups and users instead of exporting sensitive student information to third-party websites. Social media is becoming increasingly popular in education, but many schools and districts are still wary about student information and privacy. With Yammer, students and teachers can create user profiles, interact in groups, give and receive recognition, and share content. The difference for schools is that administrators and IT staff are in complete control of the network.
120 http://www.theverge.com/2014/10/1/6879999/microsoft-sway-office-app 121 http://blogs.msdn.com/b/education/archive/2014/02/19/can-education-customers-get-yammer-free.aspx
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Bing in the Classroom Microsoft has developed an ad-free version of its search engine Bing just for schools. After administrators enroll a school in Bing in the Classroom, student searches are ad-free, content-filtered, and private. As of last year, Bing in the Classroom had already received 35 million queries from 4.5 million students in more than 5,000 schools.122 Bing in the Classroom also advertises itself as supporting teachers in their daily instruction. It connects the daily mystery image with a lesson plans for teachers in three grade bands and runs special programs such as the Summer Story Challenge. In addition, Bing users can donate their Bing Rewards, earned through Internet queries, to local schools enabling schools to earn free Microsoft Surface tablets.
Microsoft Kinect
Kinect for Windows adds a motion-sensing element to Xbox gaming consoles and has been adapted for use in education, allowing teachers to make learning experiences immersive and interactive. The Microsoft Educator Network promotes Kinect for Windows, offering lesson plans aligned to Common Core standards and a OneNote notebook on how teachers can get started. Technologically savvy educators can use the Kinect for Windows Software Development Kit (SDK) to develop their own classroom applications for the tool. Skype in the Classroom Skype, the consumer videoconference tool has also been adapted for classroom use. Google Hangouts is a direct competitor to Skype, both offering a similar list of education programs. Now a few years old, Skype in the Classroom suggests lesson ideas, pairs teachers and classrooms interested in collaboration, and connects classrooms with experts. Teachers can use Skype to take their classes on virtual field trips offered by museums and other organizations throughout the world. A program called Mystery Skype turns Skype calls into a geography game where students in two different classrooms ask questions to try to determine each others’ locations. At the end of 2014, Skype released Skype Translator in beta form, potentially bringing down language barriers with real-time translation.123
Minecraft Microsoft purchased Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, for 2.5 billion dollars in September, 2014. The move to buy Minecraft, which surpassed 100 million users during the past year,124 can be seen as an effort by Microsoft to gain further access to young users. Minecraft is also increasingly used by educators looking to connect with students in an engaging virtual world and build it into learning experiences. For example, students and teachers can explore math topics such as geometry or build scale models of real-world landmarks. Teacher Gaming licenses Minecraft from Microsoft and has developed a separate platform just for education called MinecraftEDU. Their website advertises reduced cost for education purchases, a lesson library, and professional development for teachers on how to get started using Minecraft with students.125
122 http://www.eweek.com/enterprise-apps/microsoft-makes-educational-push-with-onenote-for-teachers.html 123 http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2880429/How-Bien-gracias-Skype-Translator-beta-released-banish-language-barriers-world.html 124 http://gamerant.com/100-million-registered-minecraft-users/ 125 https://minecraftedu.com/ For Internal Use 1001 SE Water Avenue Suite 400 Portland, Oregon 97214 503 248–4300 clarity-innovations.com
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Free Tools for Teachers On the Microsoft Educator Network, Microsoft promotes a number of free applications it has developed. For each of the following tools, Microsoft provides tutorials, ideas for learning activities, and associated resources:
• Movie Maker: Create videos with Microsoft’s video editing software;
• Songsmith: Add music automatically to go along with lyrics;
• AutoCollage: Easily assemble images into a collage;
• Photosynth: Create and explore interactive 3D experiences;
• Touch Develop: Learn to code with a drag and drop editor; and
• Kodu: Learn to code visually in a kid-friendly game-based environment.
Similar to Google’s add-ons for its core suite of Google Apps, Microsoft offers a series of add-ins that extend the functionality of their office programs for educators. Office Mix for PowerPoint is the most prolific, but Microsoft has also developed the following add-ins:
• Chemistry Add-in for Word: Include Chemistry information in Word documents;
• Mathematics Add-in for Word and One-Note: Create, solve, and import math equations;
• Common Core Implementation Kit: Connect standards to lesson plans in Word documents; and
• Math Worksheet Generator: Create custom worksheets for math class.
Microsoft Windows Store Microsoft’s online app store has struggled in its early stages. Not only are its education offerings sparser, the company’s app store is filled with misleading and scam-filled apps. Microsoft has recently taken steps to remedy this problem by introducing new name, category, and icon requirements126, but the store is still nowhere near as robust as their competitors, Google and Apple. Apple independently reviews apps for its store, and Google is beginning to certify education apps with Google Play from Education. So far, the only step from Microsoft in this direction is the creation of series of “What’s APPening” PDF pamphlets highlighting the best education app offerings on the Windows store and the curation of a similar list on their education page.127 From Microsoft’s point of view, apps are not the only thing; each tablet PC also gives students a full computing experience with powerful software and web-based applications.
Microsoft has developed a number of its own apps for the Windows store and advertises them for use in education through the Microsoft Educator Network:
• FreshPaint: Sketch, draw, and paint on a tablet PC;
• Movie Moments: Create polished movies with app based video editor; and
• Kodu Game Lab: Teach programming with the visual language platform for Windows 8.
126 http://blogs.windows.com/buildingapps/2014/08/27/how-were-addressing-misleading-apps-in-windows-store/ 127 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/education-apps/default.aspx#fbid=GtMDn0Akxb7
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Strategy Microsoft must be well aware of its challenges. It is not only being challenged on the device front by Apple’s iPads and Google’s lower cost Chromebooks and Android tablets; it is being challenged on the software front as well. The most obvious threat is from Google’s free web-based alternatives to Office. However, Microsoft is also threatened by the large number of inexpensive, third-party apps on the Chrome Web Store, Google Play, and iTunes App store. Evernote, a productivity app very similar to OneNote, is a concrete example of just how much more competitive the software market is for Microsoft.
Microsoft seems to mounting a substantial response. It is working hard to get its message out that it offers the best tools for education. Using its education page of its website, Microsoft not only introduces its software options, it also displays a series of well-crafted graphics outlining the advantages of its solutions for students, teachers, and administrators as compared to Google’s and Apple’s.128 Using its Microsoft Educator Network, Microsoft is reaching out to educators directly, advertising its products, and promoting free resources. At the same time, Microsoft is using its Innovative Educator Network to establish a global network of Microsoft evangelists to showcase its software options and train others.
Similar to how it makes devices across the price points to reach the wide spectrum of users, Microsoft attempts to reach all education users with its software. It is maintaining its Office products for those teachers who have relied on it for entire careers while making it easier than ever for teachers and students to acquire licenses through their academic institution. At the same time, it is reaching out to the next generation of educators by developing free, web-based versions of Office that not only match, but may also beat out the functionality of Google Apps. In addition, Microsoft has recently developed or acquired a handful of interesting new tools from Office Mix to Sway to Minecraft to appeal to educators. Realizing how competitive the market is, many of these offerings are free.
With the upcoming transition to Windows 10, Microsoft admits that as much as its efforts are about improving education, they are also about attracting the next generation of consumers. Craig Ashley from the Windows team recently said at TechEd Europe 2014; “At the end of all this, it’s the consumer story as well, they [students] are going to be consumers. The experience that we want to provide them has to be fantastic from a Windows 10 perspective, even if it’s not an education message or an enterprise message. They need to love the device.”129
Distribution Microsoft products are ubiquitous and readily available through countless retailer, e-tailers, and Microsoft’s own stores. Potential clients can contact a sales representative through their web site and manage purchase orders for large-scale purchasing of devices.
Enrollment for Education Solutions (EES) provides qualified academic customers a simplified way to acquire Microsoft software and services under a single, subscription agreement. It offers benefits such as assured coverage for on-premises desktop platform products with one annual count of employees, the ability to easily add additional products in any quantity, self-service tools for simplified asset management, and immediate access to benefits such as product upgrades through Microsoft Software Assurance.
128 http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office365/default.aspx#fbid=GtMDn0Akxb7 129 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5AxsdTrD5U
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Samsung Education Solutions
Samsung Education Solutions
Samsung is a significant provider of devices for schools implementing 1:1 computing programs. Their offerings are built around two devices: Galaxy Tab tablets and Chromebooks.
SOFTWARE Samsung tablets and Chromebooks come with a variety of educational software depending on the device.
Management Software
Samsung School Samsung’s signature software, Samsung School130: a suite of educational software that comes preinstalled on select Galaxy tablets for teachers and individual students. This software consists of a learning management system with classroom management features and interactive tools that connect with Samsung interactive whiteboards and management software.
Samsung School is designed to promote active learning and student engagement through the use of interactive tools. With screen sharing, the teacher can distribute files to all or specific groups of students on the spot during class, and students can share files with each other and with the teacher. Up to six participants can write on a shared screen at the same time. The Separable Canvas feature allows a group leader to split an image into separate sections to be completed by individuals and then re-assembled to submit to the teacher. A similar feature called Group Reporting allows a group leader to divide up a report and then collect the sections for submission.
A Texting and School Announcement feature supports communication between students and teachers, as well as with the entire student body. The quizzing and polling feature makes it easy for teachers to keep students engaged and quickly assess student comprehension of basic facts and concepts. The Viewer allows teachers and students to view files in a variety of platforms, such as Microsoft Word, JPG, and PDF. The content is automatically aligned and fitted to the screen.
130 http://www.samsung.com/us/business/by-industry/education-solutions/samsung-school
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One of the unique components of the Galaxy Tab is the S pen that allows students and teachers to take and share handwritten notes. With this capability and the screen-sharing feature, teachers can share notes and annotate digital content on the large screen for the entire class to see.
Samsung School software also helps teachers manage their classrooms. Teachers can monitor students’ screens and remotely lock applications, screens and input functionality. A Lesson Toolbar allows teachers to access web content and educational applications and manage the interactive features used in classroom instruction. Teachers can also activate learning applications on a timer on every student’s device simultaneously to time specific learning activities or exams.
Web-based management For a fee of $30 per Chromebook, schools can purchase Google’s web-based management console software. This console allows teachers with the network administrator’s permission to create user groups, pre-install and block apps, track assets, manage user access, control network access, and customize user features.
Wunderlist The Samsung Chromebook 2 for education comes pre-installed with Wunderlist, a free to-do list app.
AirDroid Premium Samsung’s Chromebooks come with an AirDroid Premium account. This software connects the Chromebook to other Android devices and has features such as unlimited file transfer, remote camera operation, and priority technical support.
Samsung School is also a learning management system that helps in the administration of courses. Courses can be created and organized, and students can conveniently join a class either through QR codes or by invitation messages. The Public Library stores data on a central server and allows users to access and share content. The Local Library on individual student and teacher tablets allows quick access to resources. The Quiz Bank provides a space for teachers to store and organize quiz and poll question in a central location and share with other teachers.
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Curriculum-Based Software Google Play for Education Users of Samsung Android tablets for education have access to all the educational apps available in the Google Play Store.
Chrome Web Store Users of Samsung Chromebooks can download educational apps created specifically for Chromebooks in schools. Purchasers of 20 or more licenses receive a bulk discount.
Little Bridge This educational app to support children learning English comes pre-installed on Samsung Chromebooks.
Learning Hub Although not available in the United States, the Learning Hub provides educational content — such as text- books and video lectures — as well as a Management System to help students track their progress.
Bundling Options Samsung offers several options for bundling devices. All of these bundles come with the management software, Samsung School.
Samsung School Standard • Google Play for Education. Samsung School Solution (1 year or perpetual)
• Select Galaxy Tabs Samsung School Interactive • Samsung School Solution (1 year or perpetual)
• Galaxy Tab 4 Education
• Samsung ME75C - ME-C Series 75” Edge-Lit LED Display w/ TV Tuner
• 75” Touch Overlay
• Samsung AllShare® Cast Wireless Hub Samsung School Premium • Samsung School Solution (1 year or perpetual)
• Galaxy Tab 4 Education
• Samsung ME75C - ME-C Series 75” Edge-Lit LED Display w/ TV Tuner
• 75” Touch Overlay
• Samsung AllShare® Cast Wireless Hub
• Color multifunction printer
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Marketing Strategies and Resources Samsung markets its devices as important components of student-centered learning environments that “inspire achievement.” The company highlights its full suite of smart mobile devices, the interactive and collaborative features of their Samsung School software, and the diverse learning content and mobile apps available through Google Play and, outside the United States, Learning Hub. By bundling its Chromebooks and tablets with other Samsung educational products — such as printers, digital displays, touch overlays, and wireless hubs — the company offers schools an easy way to purchase the technology they need to begin a 1:1 program. Samsung also offers the Mobile Care Pack for Education, a service package that covers the breaking and outage of devices.
Samsung emphasizes the following benefits of purchasing Samsung tablets and Chromebooks for the classroom:
• Affordability;
• Easy of management with Samsung School and Google web-based management software;
• Enriched education with apps available from the Google Play and Google Chrome Web Store;
• Compatibility with Windows OS;
• The S pen; and
• Portability and durability.
Samsung Computers in the Classroom Videos on Samsung’s Education web site describe how schools are using Samsung devices and software to enhance student learning.
The Alternative School for Math and Science131 was the first independent school to deploy the Samsung devices and the Samsung School Solution software throughout the school. According to the school’s educators, Samsung School allows teachers to involve students actively in the learning process and to extend the learning environment beyond the school’s walls. The software allows students to communicate their learning in ways that engage them with technology.
Desert Sands Unified School District132 in Coachella County — a large, diverse district in southern California — began a 1:1 computing initiative in 2011 with 200 Chromebooks. In 2015, they have deployed 20,000 devices: Samsung tablets in early grades and Chromebooks for older students. The educators in the district say that the devices enable them to personalize student learning through the use of student learning data, Web resources, and management software.
Distribution Samsung invites potential clients to contact a sales representative through their web site. They claim to have easy to manage purchase orders for large-scale purchasing of devices. NFC technology supports the easy provisioning of Galaxy Tabs, enabling educators to set up a classroom of devices in minutes.
131 http://www.samsung.com/us/business/by-industry/education/] 132 http://www.samsung.com/us/business/by-industry/education
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