Last year, we introduced Chromebook Plus, a new class of powerful laptops perfect for teachers and education staff. With 2X better performance, displays, memory and storage along with options for touchscreen convertibles and stylus, they make wireless whiteboarding and instruction anywhere in the classroom easier and more accessible, starting at just $350.
Today, we’re announcing the next set of Chromebook Plus computers from Acer with new features powered by Google AI to help educators and education leaders.
Many of the Chromebook features that you already use are already powered by Google AI, including accessibility tools like live captions and reading mode, content creation tools like Screencast with its new text-based video editing capabilities and sustainability features like adaptive battery charging. With Chromebook Plus, we’re introducing powerful new generative AI capabilities to help save educators, staff and admins time and be even more productive.
Features to help teach and save time
Teachers are stretched thin these days, and we know you need all the time you can get to invest in themselves and your students – to focus on academics and wellbeing. Our new features are here to help.
- Help me write for Chromebook Plus1makes it easier to write feedback on a student’s work or send updates to parents. Right-click on any text box and Help me write can suggest a clever lesson title, condense or emojify your text, or even change the tone of your text to be more formal.
- Google Task and Calendar integration helps you check and update your to-do lists right from your Chromebook desktop. Students also have their own integration with Google Classroom to help them track assignments and complete their work on time.
- New video tools for Chromebook Plus let you customize your meeting background with blur or wherever your imagination and generative AI will take you for those remote learning days, after school meetings and parent-teacher conferences. Too much background noise during your meeting? We got you covered there, too. Our new built-in noise cancellation tool can help your voice stand out.
- Content creation tools like the GIF maker and Screencast are here to help with content creation. With the built-in screen capture tool, you can choose to automatically save screen recordings in GIF format to make your own homemade demos or reaction GIFs. And with Screencast, teachers can record, edit and share video lessons easily, then assign the link in Classroom with a quick copy and paste.
- Gemini for Google Workspace: We recently announced we’re bringing Gemini to Google Workspace for Education. With these tools, education leaders can get even more amazing generative AI features built into Google Workspace for Education to help with lesson planning, content creation and more.
These features and more will be rolling out, along with admin controls for all generative AI features, in the coming months.
Lead, manage and secure devices with Google Admin console
With so many schools now providing Chromebooks for every student, we’re working hard to make device management more efficient and save time for IT admins and school leaders. Device Hub will centralize fleet information for IT admins and provide notifications and recommendations based on potential issues to make fleet management more seamless.
Later this year, we’ll be sharing a host of other AI driven features built directly into Google Admin console to make managing your devices easier. These features will all be available with Chrome Education Upgrade.
“Chromebook Plus powered by Intel Core Ultra processors deliver cutting-edge AI capabilities that help boost teacher productivity. Our collaboration brings to life devices with the best of ChromeOS and Intel, enhancing the experience for educators.
Jennifer Larson
GM of Commercial Client Segment at Intel
Stay tuned for more Chromebook updates in June
These are just some of the many tools we’re building for the 50 million and counting Chromebook users in schools around the world. We have lots more to share in the coming months, from hands-free cursor controls to our new focus and Help me read features. Stay tuned for our next update in June and come see us at the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) conference in Denver.