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Christopher Dawson
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What does the Chrome OS mean for education?

By | July 8, 2009, 6:16am PDT

Summary: Well, at the moment, nothing. As Larry Dignan pointed out in his post this morning, “…the Chrome OS announcement is largely a preannouncement. There won’t be anything to see for a year.” That being said, an interesting response to my post, “Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu,” came across Twitter from @Two_Ring [...]

Well, at the moment, nothing. As Larry Dignan pointed out in his post this morning, “…the Chrome OS announcement is largely a preannouncement. There won’t be anything to see for a year.” That being said, an interesting response to my post, “Windows 7 is the same as Ubuntu,” came across Twitter from @Two_Ring this morning:

Pretty sad he is 17 and he only uses the web browser? Wow…

He was, of course, referring to my kid, who is increasingly OS-agnostic since the browser masks the underlying operating system and he, like me, basically lives in a browser window (or 3). My response?

Really? I’m 33 and use a browser and Eclipse pretty exclusively. For him, it’s iMovie on my Mac and Chrome on his machine

Sure, there are some desktop applications that we use heavily; living in the cloud works a lot better for the average teenager than it does for the average professional. As I said, I use Eclipse (actually I’ve switched to Aptana Studio, but it’s based on Eclipse) a lot. He steals my Mac to use iMovie. I haven’t completely broken the Office 2007 habit either for serious documentation.

Web development, movie production, and desktop publishing are not, however, the primary uses of netbooks, nor do they tend to be the primary tasks of the average student, whether in primary, secondary, or post-secondary education. Students need to get online (fast), take notes, write essays, blog, manage their social networks, email, etc. Our 1:1 implementation are largely focused on having students be able to write, communicate, collaborate, share and research anytime, anywhere. Guess what? A netbook that boots within seconds into a browser with immediate access to Google Apps would fill the bill quite handily.

Sure, we have a ways to go. I’m not holding off buying netbooks and I’m certainly not abandoning the Classmate, with its broad ecosystem of hardware and desktop software that lends itself to K-8 education. However, for our older students, Chrome and the Google software stack that Larry describes will be the killer education apps on netbooks for students in high school and college.


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Topics

Education, Desktop, Student, Eclipse, Web Browser, Netbook, Netbooks, Nettops & MIDs, Web Browsers, Hardware, Internet, Christopher Dawson

Chris Dawson is a freelance writer and consultant with years of experience in educational technology and web-based systems. In 2011, he became the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network SaaS provider.

Disclosure

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson is the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., by day and a freelance writer and educational technology consultant by night. Well, most of his colleagues at WizIQ are based in India, so really he's working with them whenever he can stay awake. He has worked for his local school district as a teacher and technology director, for the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, and for Biogen, Inc. (now Biogen-IDEC, Inc.). He has also consulted with STATNet and Cytyc Corporation and retains close ties with X2 Development Corporation (now owned by Follett Software, the supplier of the student information system he administered for several years). Follett is paying him a monthly honorarium to act as a presenter for their "SIS Voices for Student Achievement" community (he produces occasional blog posts and hosts a monthly webinar on the use of student information systems to inform data-driven instruction and school-wide change. He regularly purchases and/or recommends Dell hardware. This is because Dell makes good hardware and has truly committed itself to education in innovative ways, particularly with their "Connected Classroom" initiative. It isn't because he has dealings with the company through his role at WizIQ (which he does) or because they have provided him with long-term loans of a variety of equipment for in-depth testing (which they have). Intel (reference designer for the Classmate PCs he has implemented in his local schools) has provided him with long-term loans of Classmate PCs for testing, as have Dell and Lenovo with their educational offerings. He may report on any of these companies as his experiences with them have direct bearing on educational technology; positive reports are not necessarily an endorsement and he receives no direct financial compensation from these companies or any others. Intel paid all expenses for his attendance at the 2009 Intel Classmate PC Ecosystem Summit which he attended as the sole representative of the technology press. He was invited to attend in 2010 but his wife would have killed him if he spent 3 days in Vegas geeking out and left her home alone with a new baby. Acer provided him with a 50% discount on an Aspire One netbook in early 2009 after he tested it for 30 days through their educational seed program. He liked the netbook at the time but it has since broken and sits unused in his office. Canonical sent him Ubuntu lanyards, t-shirts, and mousepads for his kids. He stole one of the lanyards and proudly hangs his keys from it and occasionally features his 8-year old wearing an oversized Ubuntu t-shirt on his Facebook profile. Gunnar Optiks sent him a pair of computer glasses to evaluate for a holiday gift guide. He is wearing them now as he types this because they never asked for them back and they rock out loud. Seriously - they work brilliantly and make it much easier to spend 20 hours a day staring at an LCD. If they ever asked for them back, he would fork over the $99 and buy a pair. Microsoft gave him 2 free copies of Office 2010 professional, a desktop clock, and a useless book on Office 2010 when he attended the launch of Office/Sharepoint 2010. He occasionally uses the SharePoint lanyard they gave him instead of the Ubuntu lanyard for his keys, but feels dirty afterwards. Adobe provided him with a pre-release version of the CS5 Master Collection for evaluation and ultimately provided a full, licensed copy for ongoing testing of educational applications of this admittedly expensive software. Like the Gunnars, if the license expires or they come out with CS6, he'd actually go out and buy it himself. Which is saying something, because he's actually pretty cheap. Any other companies wishing to send him cool things to evaluate, wear, or otherwise adorn his kids are more than welcome to; he promises to disclose it here if he keeps any of the stuff. Finally, because WizIQ is a virtual classroom and learning network provider, Chris, as VP of Marketing, frequently interacts with, seeks out deals with, and directly or indirectly competes with a whole lot of LMS, SIS, and other Education 2.0 companies. In general, he'll limit his reporting about these companies to news that does not impact his relationship with them or with WizIQ. If he reports on them, it's because what they are doing is newsworthy or worth the attention of his readers and not because he's trying to broker some deal, damage competition, or otherwise advance his position in his day job. LMS and SIS companies, along with other online learning communities, are a pretty important part of Ed Tech. If he stops reporting on them completely, there won't be a whole lot left. He'll be sure to call out any overt conflicts of interest if they are unavoidable. Finally, Follett Software Company pays him a little tiny honorarium every month to present on their SIS Voices webinars and to write the occasional blog or discussion thread for them. Since Follett recently bought X2 (maker of an awesome web-based SIS that Chris just happened to have used, served in advisory groups for, and frequently reported on), this is probably also worth disclosing.

Biography

Christopher Dawson

Christopher Dawson grew up in Seattle, back in the days of pre-antitrust Microsoft, coffeeshops owned by something other than Starbucks, and really loud, inarticulate music. He escaped to the right coast in the early 90's and received a degree in Information Systems from Johns Hopkins University. While there, he began a career in health and educational information systems, with a focus on clinical trials and related statistical programming and database modeling. This focus led him to several positions at Johns Hopkins, a couple-year stint in private industry, teaching high school math and technology, and 2 years as the technology director for his local school district. Most recently, he started his own consulting business and is now the Vice President of Marketing for WizIQ, Inc., a virtual classroom and learning network provider. He lives with his wife, five kids (yes, 5), 2 dogs, and a hateful cat in a small town in north-central Massachusetts. Although he is no longer teaching, his roles with WizIQ and ZDNet allow him to continue helping students and teachers add value to education with technology rather than merely adding to the bottom line.

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RE: What does the Chrome OS mean for education?
BDA123 9th Jul 2009
The idea of a lightweight Tablet Netbook PC could and probably will dominate in the next couple of years. There are only a few factors that need to be fixed. These are SS HDs need to drop in price significantly, NVidia Ion (with an ATI or Intel GPU substitute) needs to become ubiquitous, Adobe needs to fix the GPU acceleration problems of Flash, Intel Atom 330 needs to be a little faster, and battery technology needs to improve to give the more powerful systems a little more operating time. That being said all of the above changes appear to be well in the works. We will likely see an Asus T101 (or better yet a T121 12" tablet with a cheap SSHD, free Google Chrome OS, Wifi n, Bluetooth, with the necessary outputs (HDMI, 2+ USB2, SPDIF, eSATA, Gigabit LAN, etc.) This machine would significantly canabalize the current Laptop industry. More importantly with a sub $300 price point you would likely see it a requirement that every student in any decent elementary and high school in the nation have one. The combination of an OneNote/Outlook type free program on a Google Chrome OS based Netbook Tablet PC would be a world wide market shifter. The trend to small form factor, energy efficient, low cost, multimedia rich, web based computing is so well on its way that Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Via, Dell, Acer, Asus, LG, Nvidia, and Lenovo would all be fools to not see it for what it is. And honestly they have already seen it!
View in thread
0 Votes
+ -
Another Distro for the masses
Maarek 8th Jul 2009
I'll Stick with Ubuntu.
0 Votes
+ -
It's going to be an interesting ...
mwagner@... 8th Jul 2009
... next couple of years, Chris!

If Google does things right, we might see the market fragment into a "consumer PC" segment (the PC as an appliance) based entirely upon an OS-agnostic "netbook-like" device and an "enterprise PC" segment (the PC as a tool) utilizing more traditional operating systems and platforms.

This is really no different than what we already see in the OS-agnostic smartphone devices the cellcos have been selling - except that the netbook is a more versatile device.

Funny, we owe a lot of this to the vision of Nicholas Negromponte and OLPC - not because it was a success as he envisioned it but because OEMs became aware of the pent-up demand at the $200-$300 price-point.

Of course, this downward pressure on price is good for consumers but it is also good for Micrsoft and Google and ultimately Linux (which has yet to make any serious inroads, in large part because Linux vendors just don't get it!)

I leave Apple out of the equation because they can't compete at commodity price-points.
0 Votes
+ -
How about teaching them something they may actually use later?
condelirios 8th Jul 2009
Why not teach the kids to use what the real world uses? For example, lots of freshman college students are gearing up for fall by buying Macs right now. But in the business world...99.9% of all computers on the desktops are Windows based....and will continue to be when they graduate unprepared in the basics of Windows.

Seems kind of counterproductive. But if you factor in something like a Chrome OS...you bring in a Linux distro that is limited to web browser use and they have no MS Excel, Word or Powerpoint experience either?

Seems absolutely worthless.
0 Votes
+ -
In terms of what you learn in school...
zkiwi Updated - 8th Jul 2009
Do you expect the kids to be up with the latest and greatest version, and fully productive? If so, then ask yourself who's going to be paying for continual upgrade cycle.

If all you're expecting is generic/base level skills from which they can be brought up to speed then it makes sense to go with such as OpenOffice, Linux, and maybe even this ChromeOS thing. As long as the kids (and businesses) get told what the differences are then it's not a bad thing. Remember, what the kids use in school will pretty much always be around 2 versions out of date, which makes going for "current version" skills as pretty much a waste of time.
0 Votes
+ -
worthless is learning to use a 7 YO OS..
garybau 8th Jul 2009
Xp is still windows OS of choice

Why get a new machine when a six year old will do just fine?

of course schools are up to the latest in technology!? Not!

so learn how to learn..then adapt when you get into a workplace

recall all the lower paid jobs manufacturing = china/india!

service jobs are guest workers

..same as here in Australia

the locals need higher value skills..which is thinking and creating new
ideas/approaches..or better ones
0 Votes
+ -
RE: What does the Chrome OS mean for education?
garybau 8th Jul 2009
it's about education..nottraining for business

learning to think and create, windows is (usually) locked
down and any side excursions blocked off.

viruses alone take too much from the productive effort in
schools.

plenty of time to do as they are told in a work environment

schools are about quick expression and learning from
experience...the more experience..the more learning

as for creative!?

anyone with the money would get an apple....not so much
can't as won't make a consumer product with stripped
functionality(=netbook)...
...though a 7~10" 3G Touch slated for September might
alter the perceptions...
0 Votes
+ -
Webification of educational tools
linuser 9th Jul 2009
Educational institutions should migrate to web apps, for all of their learning tools/applications.

This would:

1. Enable OS flexibility (Windows, OS X, Ubuntu, Android, Chrome OS, etc....essentially anything with a modern browser).

2. Reduce hardware expenses (the PC needs only be capable of running web apps efficiently).

3. Simplify PC administration (no/minimal desktop apps to buy/maintain/upgrade).

4. Provide an incentive for educational tool vendors to webify their apps (now there would be a big market for them!).

5. Prepare students for the future (web apps are on the upswing; desktop apps are on the downswing...even in enterprises).
0 Votes
+ -
And what about collaboration
JackCF 9th Jul 2009
it sounds ackward, I think. Yes, it's good to
have a new OS version, but for geeks. For other
users, having a good and friendly graphical
interface is enough. This means, as long as a
web site offers good navegability we are OK. On
the other hand, productivity tools for students
and a simple majority of users is a must. The
google initiative is greath altough their
productivity tools still lacks of stability and
frecuently crashes.
In one way or another we are returning to try
to find the old "silver bullet" of platform
independency. Fortunately the IT forge is more
experienced and mature. As Software Programmers
we face the nightmare of writting efficient,
scalable and ubiquitus applications, something
we've learnt to do right in a windows
environment.
For the ordinary user, having its applications
in a web based environment or not is something
she doesn't care as long as they could have the
answers. what about movile computing? the
problem there is "small displays". What if we
could provide interfaces for bigger displays or
projection screens and bluetooth
keyboards/tracking devices. Maybe we'll be
using our Nokias for everything.
0 Votes
+ -
RE: What does the Chrome OS mean for education?
BDA123 9th Jul 2009
The idea of a lightweight Tablet Netbook PC could and probably will dominate in the next couple of years. There are only a few factors that need to be fixed. These are SS HDs need to drop in price significantly, NVidia Ion (with an ATI or Intel GPU substitute) needs to become ubiquitous, Adobe needs to fix the GPU acceleration problems of Flash, Intel Atom 330 needs to be a little faster, and battery technology needs to improve to give the more powerful systems a little more operating time. That being said all of the above changes appear to be well in the works. We will likely see an Asus T101 (or better yet a T121 12" tablet with a cheap SSHD, free Google Chrome OS, Wifi n, Bluetooth, with the necessary outputs (HDMI, 2+ USB2, SPDIF, eSATA, Gigabit LAN, etc.) This machine would significantly canabalize the current Laptop industry. More importantly with a sub $300 price point you would likely see it a requirement that every student in any decent elementary and high school in the nation have one. The combination of an OneNote/Outlook type free program on a Google Chrome OS based Netbook Tablet PC would be a world wide market shifter. The trend to small form factor, energy efficient, low cost, multimedia rich, web based computing is so well on its way that Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Via, Dell, Acer, Asus, LG, Nvidia, and Lenovo would all be fools to not see it for what it is. And honestly they have already seen it!

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