Adopting Google in the classroom ¹

At-A-Glance

Current behavior:

Most teachers do not use technology in the classroom, and those that do use non-Google products and platforms.

Desired behavior:

Teachers use Google’s online tools for class assignments and classroom management and do so on Google Chromebooks.

Change approach:

Market products to teachers based on their low/no cost and their ease of use, then ask teachers to spread them to peers and district leaders.

Impact:

Over the course of six years, Chromebooks rose to account for 60% of laptops shipped to schools, and tens of millions of students use Google for Education platforms.

Implications for implementing partners:

Develop a product that will immediately appeal to end users and leave it to them to convince the system to adopt it.

Implications for supporting partners:

Consider heavily subsidizing early adoption to gain market share.

Over the span of several years, Google has made itself a common presence in the American classroom. Six years after it entered the K-12 market, Chromebooks accounted for 60% of laptop shipments to K-12 schools. Millions of students and teachers also use Google’s platforms, whether GSuite for Education or Google Classroom. Finally, it has developed a loyal following among schoolteachers and officials, with 52% choosing Google as the technology company they would hire to improve student achievement.

To gain traction at first, Google reached out directly to teachers and principals to try out its products. It bypassed senior district officials, who were sometimes upset both by the process and by substantive concerns that teachers were using tools that might violate district privacy or safety requirements. Google often left it to the teachers to generate grassroots pressure on their schools and districts to formally adopt the services.

Google often left it to the teachers to generate grassroots pressure on their schools and districts to formally adopt the services

Google then asked early adopters to function as spokespeople for the products to help get others on board. It also set up online communities of practice among teachers, regional conferences, and certification programs to give enthusiastic teachers credentials to spread their Google classroom expertise.

The product itself, of course, deserves credit for its following. The software services are free, and the laptops cost roughly half of an Apple alternative.

This rise has not been without concern – many have worried that Google is gathering data for advertising uses or using classroom exposure to gain lifelong customers. However, despite these concerns, the product appears to stick for now. Teachers and administrators rated the product very highly on its simplicity and cost, and for now, that appears to be enough to keep these customers.