Oct.3.2017

School has finally started and a new technology has been issued to students at both the Junior High and High School. The district has issued Chromebooks to students as a tool to not only stay connected with teachers but prepare students for future. However could the Chromebooks really be worth it?

According to the main CKHS web page under the technology section it states “As technology reshapes jobs and industries, it also reshapes how and what we teach.” This is achieved by allowing students to take school assigned Chromebooks home and back. The intentions are good seeing that the faculty wants students to have their textbooks available electronically so that they don’t have to lug around enormous bricks.

Multiple students said that they had computers at home and did not need to use the school issued computers. As a result these individuals were asked if they thought the program was necessary. Jacob Loper said that “there was nothing wrong with the physical textbooks”. Which is interesting seeing as we have access to them electronically.

It must be noted that not all of the textbooks are accessible so students still have to carry around the physical books. However the textbooks that are accessible such as the math books seem to encounter frequent errors saying that a certain pages do not exist. In order to administer a temporary fix one must refresh his or her screen and re enter the page number they entered previously which seems to do the trick but, as said before, is only temporary.

With the unreliability of some of the textbooks on the Chromebooks the plus sides of this programs is stuck between two ideas. Connection with teachers, and access for the percentage of students without a computer at home. Joshua Hughes said, “I believe that it is a nice program is you don’t have a computer at home”. The Chromebooks are good for not having to lug around textbooks but the reliability of the textbooks online seems to be unpredictable. The connection with teachers through programs such as Google Classroom and Planbook is a huge advantage but most students have personal computers at home that they can access these apps. Because of this why not allow students to bring their own personal computers with them? If they don’t have laptops most of the aforementioned applications are on their phones.