How will the continuing evolution of mobile devices affect students’ computing experience?
The rapid evolution of mobile computing has had a profound effect on school technology use in recent years, and this trend is sure to continue in 2010. Over the past several months, netbooks–smaller, scaled-down versions of notebook computers–have begun replacing laptops in a number of schools, and recent advancements in smart-phone technology have prompted many school leaders to reevaluate their cell-phone policies, with an eye on whether these can put a computer in each student’s hands for less money than traditional machines. Later this year, Google will introduce a new operating system for netbooks and other mobile computers that promises to reduce boot-up speeds dramatically. Called Chrome, the new system–which is closely tied to Google’s web browser of the same name–aims to shift users toward “cloud computing,” a model in which programs are not installed on a local machine but instead are accessed online. In a recent demonstration, a netbook using an early version of the Chrome o
