All You Need to Know about the Chromebook Education License

Chromebooks are portable computing devices that run the lightweight Chrome operating system (OS) from Google. While a license is not normally required for using a Chromebook,organizations can manage their Chromebooks remotely only if they get a Chrome OS device management license.

A Chromebook Education license provides you with additional benefits such as device enrollment and management, additional security features and 24/7 IT Support. Read on to find out more about the benefits that a Chromebook Education license has to offer for your institution.

What Is a Chromebook Education License?

Chromebooks have come a long way, with major hardware manufacturers regularly releasing laptops, tablets and all-in-one devices running Chrome OS. Schools, in particular, find Chromebooks ideal, since they are cheaper, easier to maintain, and supported for much longer compared to other devices.

While you can run a Chromebook without a license, if you want to manage a Chromebook remotely, you need to get a device management license for it. For schools, there is a perpetual Chromebook Education license that is offered at a discount and needs to be paid per device only once.

In case a Chromebook needs to be replaced due to a hardware issue, schools can transfer its Chromebook Education license to the replacement device, which should be the same model as the old device. Licenses can’t be transferred to another device model nor to a device in a different domain.

In addition, schools have the option to purchase Chrome OS devices bundled with perpetual Chrome Education Upgrade licenses. You can also purchase Upgrade licenses for standalone Chromebooks in your domain. However, you can’t transfer an Upgrade license to another device, even a replacement for a malfunctioning Chromebook.

What Are the Benefits of Using Chromebooks with the Education Upgrade License?

There are many benefits to getting a Chromebook Education license for your schools. For one, it allows you to manage devices from the Google Admin Console. This allows easy management of hundreds or even thousands of devices with minimal effort.

When a new Chromebook is purchased and added to the school’s domain, it is assigned a license automatically, if available. If all licenses have been used, you will not be allowed to enroll the device. Chromebooks that don’t have an assigned license will not be able to access your school domain.

With a Chromebook Education license, school IT staff can manage and deploy user and device policies, enable public sessions, deploy Wi-Fi and Ethernet network configurations, and push applications and extensions to individual devices.

With device policies, IT staff can control the ability to install applications on Chromebooks in your domain. You can define applications that students can use, and you can disable or block applications that students don’t need or are potentially harmful. You can also prevent students from accessing URLs and block offensive or inappropriate content on their assigned devices. You can set user policies on the device level, limiting what other users can do on other devices. You can also track device usage, if needed.

Aside from the above benefits, a Chromebook Education license includes access to 24/7 IT support from Google .

Get the Most Out of Education Chromebooks with Parallels Desktop for Chrome OS

Currently, Chromebooks support Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and can load Android apps customized specifically for the Chrome OS.

However, if you need access to full-featured Windows applications such as Microsoft Office that don’t have equivalent Android apps or a PWA is not as full-featured as you like, Parallels® Desktop for Chrome OS provides an answer. Parallels Desktop for Chrome OS is an extension that downloads a Windows 10 virtual machine (VM) securely onto a Chromebook. Using the VM, your users can then leverage Windows applications, including the full-featured Microsoft Office suite, within your organization. Offline access to Office and other Windows applications is provided, in case you have a limited or slow connection or you don’t have a working internet connection at all.

Your users can also access a Windows Desktop, documents, downloads, and custom folders from their Chromebooks seamlessly. You can move content between Chrome OS and Window easily, print from Windows to supported printers, and work with your peripherals when using Windows applications on your Chromebook.

You can manage Parallels Desktop for Chrome OS from the Google Admin Console, where you manage all your enrolled devices covered by Chromebook Education licenses.

To try Parallels Desktop for Chrome OS, download the free trial.