This holiday season, district administrators and technology department heads should be on the lookout for some high-performing tech products for their students. When considering this past year's sales of laptops and tablets, Chromebooks have outperformed other tech on the market.

Chromebooks have pushed iPads aside in schools this year and landed its spot as "the future of tech in education," according to an article on PCWorld.com. 

"U.S. schools are now buying more Chromebooks than iPads. Apple’s iPad also received another black eye this week as a federal grand jury is investigating the Los Angeles Unified School District’s much-touted and now-axed iPad contract," the article said. "LA is now going with Chromebooks—and some cheap Windows laptops, too."

According to the article, 715,000 Chromebooks were shipped to U.S. schools in Q3 2014, "while Apple shipped 702,000 iPads in the same time."

It may look close, but "Chromebooks are on the ascent and iPads are declining," the article said. The main reason is because Chromebooks are much cheaper with "some costing less than $200."

"Assuming a school wants the larger-size iPad Air—pretty much a given—that will cost them at least $379 an iPad," the article said. "And that’s for the previous-generation Chromebook in its smallest 16GB size. The iPad Air 2 will cost schools $479 each, or $579 if they want 64GB instead of the paltry 16GB base model. The cost adds up fast!"

Another asset to the Chromebook is that "keyboards are still necessary," according to the article.

"In spite of all the hype about tablets and touch screens being the future, physical keyboards are still the present," said PCWorld.com. "iPads may work well for some things, especially at younger ages. However, when a high-schooler needs to type up a research paper, that keyboard is going to come in handy. Plus, assuming students will be doing typing in future jobs, they’ll probably be using a physical keyboard anyway. They should get some practice using a physical keyboard instead of typing on a touchscreen."

Schools, the article said, "love Chromebooks because they’re low-cost and easy to manage."

"The iPad may get all the press, but Chromebooks just keep winning over schools. Apple is the hare, and Google is the tortoise," the article concluded.

Read the full story and comment below. 

Article by Kassondra Granata, Education World Contributor