What is the reason given for Chromebooks being used so much in US schools? Is it just Google having a good sales team?
I think its fine for kids to learn on. Its arguably not ideal for learning computing, but that's not most of what kids learn using a computer.
> What is the reason given for Chromebooks being used so much in US schools?
Price per unit and the fact that its bundled with software and services for centralized administration. There's nothing comparable in traditional Linux. Windows could have competed but dropped the low-end netbook as a category right around when Google started making inroads with Chromebook, and even with Windows-on-ARM neither Microsoft nor anyone using Windows seems to have really targeted the same market.
> Is it just Google having a good sales team?
I don't know how good their sales team is, I think they are the only firm that acts like they want market at all.
Chromebooks are much cheaper than Windows laptops.
Similarly priced chromebooks are also much more responsive than their Windows counterparts (mainly due to the OS being so optimized to run on crappy hardware). And you're right -- Linux might be a viable alternative here. But it's not like the corporate world runs on Linux.
unless maybe the sysadmins are also linux tutors or something? their job is teaching kids how to use linux. not to make sure their computers can work for the math class.
And even without a LAN port I assume there are various ways to automate it so it isn't really an issue. If you keep /home or if most files are synced, students could break their OSes every day if they want to. One of those students will actually learn from it, at least.
Our high school issues every entering student a Chromebook and they keep it when they leave. I am pretty happy to see my tax money spent that way.