AND WHAT ABOUT CHROMEBOOKS? There are plenty of Chromebook sightings in the classroom wilds. (EdSurge's Leonard Medlock and Darri Stephens used them this summer in Oakland with the BlendMyLearning trial. Several KIPP programs in the Bay Area are also experimenting with them.) Google execs remain tightlipped about adoption numbers. Price remains a thorny issue: Google likes to say they're inexpensive (for a three-year plan at $20 (WiFi) or $23 (WiFi+3G) per month, an educator gets a machine, a warranty and upgrades every six weeks). Educators grumble those fees add up to at least $720; schools in Auburn, Me., just plunked down $475 apiece for iPads. Apple's 500,000 apps, including many for education, vastly outweigh the 12,000 at the Chrome Web store. (Here's a portion designated as "educational.") Google gets high marks from IT managers for making Chromebooks easy to manage, but Apple still wins the "cool" factor award. Googlers say they're nurturing "digital creators" and not just "digital consumers" with their free suite of Google Apps for Education (over 14 million users thus far). It's an ongoing experiment: let us know what platform you are building for--and other factors that you think will nudge educators in one direction or the other.
