Google Play for Education Brings Apps to Educators
Today at Google I/O 2013 Google announced Google Apps for Education, a Google Play Store solution for teachers and educators that makes it easier to push apps to kids and expand education on tablets.
With the new Google Play for Education solution teachers and administrators can quickly push apps to tablets and devices to student tablets directly from the Google Play App Store.
The app store for educators includes focused educational apps that are aimed at specific skill levels and grades. Teachers can purchase apps which are billed to the school, not a teacher’s personal credit card.
Google Play for Education will make it easier for educators to push apps to students.
The demo shows off many existing apps, including fun apps like Wheels on the Bus, which may not fit in with every curriculum but it looks like the service will bring more to the tablet for educators who are working in connected classrooms.
The Google Play for Education apps will be curated and will deliver an easier way for educators to find apps for their grade or skill level. THe Play Store for Education will offer sorting by education type, ages and other areas.
When an educator finds an app they want students to use, they can use Google+ Groups to push it to users in a specific classroom or grade level. This works with Google Apps usage in schools.
One question Google didn’t answer is whether this service will be completely curated to keep ads out of the classroom. Many free apps are filled with ads that aren’t always appropriate for a school setting. It is very likely that In App purchases will be disabled in this area, which will prevent kids from running up bills on the school’s dime.
Google is hitting education hard with a surge of Android and Chrome connected eduction experiences. Google showed off footage of several test schools which are using 4G LTE equipped Chromebook Pixel notebooks to connect to the classroom and the web from anywhere.
Google alluded to cheaper tablets and devices in education, so we may see more on this later in the Google I/O 2013 keynote.
Mike
05/20/2013 at 7:48 pm
This is a great idea. As a teacher I would recommend Teacher app by Academically Informed. It is so easy to use and it really improves parent involvement. I would love use tablets in my classroom and will definitely use Academically Informed!