This time of year always tempts us to make predictions for the year ahead. I'll try to refrain from doing so, but I do wonder what will transpire in 2012. Google will have a noticeable presence at BETT this year and we have spent a fair bit of time (and money) to ensure we have an interesting story to tell. In 2011, Google launched Chromebooks and we have been able to support a number of schools who have decided to pilot these devices in real schools for use in real instruction. We're going to draw attention to these pilots at our stand and we hope that others will be inspired by the stories. Our presence at BETT is meant to signal a renewed focus on the pre-University sector and let people know why and how to use Google Apps (as well as our broader portfolio of products) in classrooms. Ours is not a sales programme, but a marketing programme. As such, it's not our intention to invest a lot of effort into convincing centralized decision-makers that they should deploy Google Apps, but instead will focus on creating and supporting a vibrant community of users and make sure that those schools that want to use Google Apps are able to do so with ease. I hope 2012 results in freely available tools and content being much more widely adopted in schools across Europe.
