School districts all the country are converting over to using Chromebooks as a regular tool in their classrooms so that they may use cloud technologies to design curriculum, give assignments and assessments, to foster collaboration, and promote 21st century skills. American east coast school districts are no different. A majority of the larger school districts are currently utilizing cloud technologies, such as Google Drive, as their primary technology tool. These school districts are purchasing large quantities of Chromebooks for their students and requiring or suggesting their teachers to obtain Google certifications. Additionally, many other school districts across the nation are requiring their teachers to understand and use cloud computing, with Google Drive being the most popular choice.

The classroom environment in the 21st century can be described as a blending of traditional and technological. School districts across the United States are struggling to keep up with the demands their faculty and students have for technology access. Cloud technology, such as the tools found in Google Drive and Google Classroom, are a couple of the most common technology platforms that is being introduced as early as kindergarten in several districts. Access to cloud-based technologies is quite often through Chromebooks, which have been gaining in popularity across the nation for the last two to three years due to being an inexpensive, web-based laptop (Herold, 2014). These Chromebooks or “netbooks” are transforming traditional classrooms into 1 to 1 learning environments that support teacher instruction and student learning. These portable devices are being touted as the “next iteration of where we’re going with personal, portable technologies for education,” (Herold, 2014, p. 2). Chromebooks are an ideal tool to use for cloud computing, whose applications are relatively limitless (Alkadi, Alkadi, & Beaubouef, 2013).

School districts are opting for the Chromebooks over iPads for a variety of reasons, especially in the secondary setting. Districts have become more discerning when purchasing technology and like the Chromebooks not only for their lower cost, but also for their functionality and the districts’ ability to manage student use and restrictions (Molnar, 2014; Pierce, 2013). Districts are providing Google cloud accounts to students in elementary schools to facilitate their teachers’ use of cloud computing, storage of documents, online discussions, and for the advantage of Google’s free software (An, Shin & Lim, 2009).

Administrators are expecting all of their teachers, not just the computer science instructors, to have a thorough understanding of how to design digital curriculum, maintain an active website, and know how to teach using electronic media and blended instructional strategies. This study will evaluate preservice teacher education programs across various school districts in the United States to determine if and how they are preparing their teacher candidates to instruct in 21st century schools.

Keywords: Preservice teachers, cloud technologies, teacher preparation.