“Education lies at the very core of our company’s mission, to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” — Page and Brin
There is no doubt Google has a huge impact on education. In 2011 alone the following occured:
There were 1 billion downloads of Google Earth; $20 million funding was awarded by Google to science, tech, engineering and math groups; there were 10,000+ applications for the Google Science Fair; 15 million: number of Google Apps used by Education users; 146: number of countries in which Google’s Apps for Education is used; $8.8 million: value of scholarships granted to 2,100 university students; 100 million +: number of views of Khan Academy video lessons on YouTube; 500,000+: videos in YouTube EDU; 15 million +: Volumes scanned in Google Books (An estimated 10% of the books printed since the Gutenberg Bible).
Google’s education initiatives focus on making learning magical for students, empowering innovative communities and building a foundation of technology and access. And with the programs for developing student potential, and the multitude of ways Google brings technology into the classroom (Chromebooks, Google Scholar, Google Earth, You Tube videos, Google Apps for Education to name a few) it’s not too far fetched to envisage a future classroom of ‘Google glasses’ wearers getting real-time information about the places, people, and objects around them, right on the lens of the glasses as they learn.
Google is even changing our brains
A Columbia University study has found that Google and other search engines are literally changing the way our brains process and retain information. The study says rather than remembering things, we now simply retain the knowledge of how to find the information we need when we need it. Some might see that as the downside of Google, or just one of the myriad of ways humans are adapting to the need for immediate access to huge amounts of information.
Check out more fascinating facts about how Google is changing education in the following infographic: 
Infographic via this site.
