Google for education: case study in the municipal school, Salvador, Bahia

Abstract

In the last decades, large Information Technology (IT) companies, such as Google, began to develop Educational projects and establish partnerships with public networks, private and civil society organizations, generating worrying reflections on public policies for access to information and communication technologies (ICT) in Brazil. Thus, the objective of this article seeks to discuss the purposes of Google for Education and its implementation, through the EscoLabs project, in schools in the municipality of Salvador/BA. With this intention, the methodological approach of the Descriptive Case Study, mediated by the procedures of direct observation and semi-structured interviews, allowed the participation of teachers, managers, and public agents of the Municipal Department of Education (SMED) in the composition of this research. In such a way, the results obtained lead us to rethink public policies for access to Digital Technologies in schools of Public Networks and suggest alerts on the exposure of data from educational institutions, teachers, and students to large IT corporations.