We have almost reached the end of tri 1 and like any other year students have final projects, tests and homework to hand in, but this year has brought a new addition, with the integration of the one to one program, with Chromebooks being given to every student.

In an online survey, 81% of students surveyed said that they use their Chromebook for school resources such as homework and online textbooks. The survey has also shown the general trend is that most people use their Chromebooks for their intended purpose.

Information Technology personnel, Tyler J. Meade has advised us that 2/3s of the fifty broken Chromebooks that they received to date,  were fixable by them, but the ones they couldn’t fix were able to be sent up the chain of command. The main problems his team received with the Chromebooks were broken screens.
Many benefits are given with the new one to one program as pointed out by Luke Devries Vice Principal of West High. “Everybody has their own device, so the teacher is familiar with the device their students are using and the staff can troubleshoot the device if problems arise. When a student comes to catch up all of the student’s assignments are on canvas.” Overall, these are great positives for both teachers and students, but everything is not running perfectly Meade adds  “ It’s one more way in classes to go further than the textbook. There are a lot more resources online for the teacher to use.”

One of the main issues that have arisen with the new Chromebooks is the miscommunication of what sites are blocked and what sites should be blocked. This was an issue in a French class. The site wasn’t blocked for the teacher but once the students tried it, it was blocked for them so the website couldn’t be used for that day. “There was an issue in a French class of the sites miscommunication and the issue was brought to the ASC and was resolved in a few days,” Devries said.
Chromebooks, in a nutshell, are a good purchase for West High, Meade says West High will break even in the next year due to how much the computer labs cost to run and maintain and how much less the Chromebooks cost to run and maintain.

Time will tell, but it looks like right now Chromebooks are a good fit for West High.