Google accused of building its brand in schools

Google's $100,000 pitch to improve the computer literacy of 500 teachers and 20,000 students in a year will allow the corporate giant to imprint brand awareness among an "impressionable audience of schoolchildren" 
Paul Harrion, a lecturer in consumer behavior and marketing at Deakin University, said Google was a lot more than a search engine and would be interested in raising awareness of products by association.
"It's like being a Mac user or a PC user-the brand versus everything else."
Ben Nevlle, an expert in ethical businesses from the University of Melbourne, said Google was the model of the modern company as encapsulated in it's the sixth business principle. " You can make money without doing evil.


"There is, on average, a positive relationship between doing good and doing well,"Dr Neville said. "Because Google has developed an effective reputation for corporate social responsibility.they have more leverage with the public than a lot of other companies."
Google's cs4hs program is bi\eing run by nine universities in Australia and New Zealand. Over a two day workshop teachers are taught won to integrate computer literacy into a range of subjects including maths and science.
Selina Dennis, an English and software development teacher at Strathmore Secondary College in Victoria, took part in the pilot program last year.
"It involved looking at ways of changing perceptions of computational thinking IT is not just skills-based, it's about thinking in logical ways,"Ms Dennis said.
But Angelo 
Gavrielatos, president of the Australian Education Union, said he opposed any corporation working with schools. "We are concerned about corporations seeking to exercise influence over the curriculum,"he said.
A spokesman for Google said there was intent\ion of promoting Google products.