Glance around a U.S. classroom, and chances are, you ll spot a Google Chromebook on a student s desk.
Chromebooks make up more than half of all devices in U.S. classrooms, up from less than 1 percent in 2012, CNBC reported, citing estimates from Futuresource Consulting.
While it was clear that Chromebooks had made progress in education, this news is, frankly, shocking, Forrester analyst J.P. Gownder told the media outlet. Chromebooks made incredibly quick inroads in just a couple of years, leaping over Microsoft and Apple with seeming ease.
Google made up 53 percent of the market for K-12 devices that schools and school districts purchased in the third quarter of this year, CNBC said.
But as Apple, Microsoft and other tech companies wade deeper into the lucrative education market, they re also facing criticism from privacy advocates concerned about data being collected from students.
In December, the Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission, claiming that Google violated students privacy by collecting and data mining school children s personal information, including their Internet searches.
Google then responded to critics days later in a company blog post, denying that it runs afoul of student data privacy rules.
Our goal is to ensure teachers and students everywhere have access to powerful, affordable and easy-to-use tools for teaching, learning and working together, wrote Jonathan Rochelle, Director of Google Apps for Education.
We have always been firmly committed to keeping student information private and secure.
Photo Credit: Google
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