Global Research

EdWeek Market Brief today released an exclusive report that takes stock of educator perceptions of four giants in the technology world, and how they stack up against each other and versus four major education-focused companies. The report—Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft: How 4 Tech Titans Are Reshaping the Ed-Tech Landscape—finds that Google consistently earns top marks from K-12 teachers and administrators asked to rate the companies’ devices, productivity tools, and ability to improve student achievement.

Source: EdWeek Market Brief 

Across nearly every category, the nationally-representative survey of 1,000 K-12 teachers and district administrators identifies Google (GOOGL) as the clear winner.

Google beat out fellow tech titans Amazon (AMZN), Apple (AAPL), and Microsoft (MSFT) and also eclipsed four large education industry players examined in the study, Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt (HMHC), McGraw-Hill, Pearson (PSO), and Scholastic (SCHL).

Even though Google is a large, multi-national corporation with interests that extend well beyond K-12 schools, survey results suggest that educators view it as a bona fide education company.

“Educators and industry analysts say Google has gained major ground in the market by meeting schools’ demand for simple, easy-to-integrate products,” says EdWeek Market Brief Senior Editor Sean Cavanagh. “Apple and Microsoft, meanwhile, are convinced that their products meet the needs of teachers and students in richer ways than Google does, and that their products will eventually win out.”

Key report findings include:

• More than half of educators (52 percent) said they would hire Google, when asked which of the eight companies they would choose to improve student achievement in their school districts. Just 13 percent favored the next most popular option, Apple Education. Scholastic finished third with 9 percent and was the top choice among the four education-focused companies included in the survey.
• Google’s low-cost Chromebooks are the school-provided devices used most often for instructional purposes in U.S. schools. Forty-two percent of educators identified Chromebooks as the most-used device in their districts and classrooms.
• And G-Suite/Google Classroom is the hands-down favorite when it comes to productivity tools. More than two-thirds of educators (68 percent) said these Google products are their most-used productivity solutions for school-related purposes. By comparison, 17 percent of educators said the same of Microsoft’s Office 365 and Classroom products, while Apple’s iWork and Classroom reached just 1 percent.
• Google’s dominance shows no signs of disappearing any time soon. More than three-quarters of educators predict that that they will use Chromebooks and Google tools “more” or “a lot more” for instructional purposes over the next five years. Fewer than 5 percent predict usage will decrease during that period.

To help tell the story behind these exclusive survey results, EdWeek Market Brief produced in-depth reporting and analysis examining just how Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft are providing schools with operating systems, devices, tools, and platforms that educators believe are having a powerful influence on student learning.

The original reporting behind the project is available at the EdWeek Market Brief website here.

A detailed report with analyses from the national survey of teachers and district leaders is available to download here.