Google Shutters Play for Education

Google is also committed towards the growing ecosystem of educative apps.

Teachers that are now using Google Play for Education should expect the company to support the program long-term since it gave no timeline for when the program would end for existing users.

Google’s Play Store had a version specifically geared towards education as a means to get Android tablets in schools.

A Pew Research survey revealed that Education was the biggest sector in Google’s Play Store in 2015, while a report by Futuresource Consulting revealed that over 51% of sales in the K-12 market can be attributed to Chromebooks. Since these users are logged into their student accounts, Google says it doesn’t show ads or use this personal information to target advertising.

The portal allowed educators to search for approved apps by grade, subject, and standard, including Common Core State Standards, as well as make bulk purchases and pay using a purchase order, then instantly distribute the apps directly to classrooms and schools.

“We’ll continue to support our Google Play for Education customers and the devices that they have purchased”, Google confirmed.

The service may be shutting down next months, but teachers can still use Google’s other device management services to do basically the same job. Al Franken, who had expressed concern that Google may be collecting students’ personal data for non-educational purposes without parents’ knowledge or consent. That has become a pressing question for privacy advocates as Google has quickly grown into one of the nation’s largest providers of educational technology in K-12 schools.

However, the situation still remains quite unclear as Google has clarified that their tracking student data is not for advertising purposes, but have not commented on what they do with the data if not advertising.

“I’m also still interested in whether or not Google can provide parents and students with stronger privacy protections”.

Google affirms that it refuses to sell the personal data of students to third parties, and adds that disclosure of personal information happens under strict circumstances.