Chromebooks are very controversial among students at SPASH. On one hand they are very convenient and easy to use. But on the other hand they are very slow,  and cause frustration to a lot of students. We need to bring back the laptops to students at SPASH. 

Chromebooks.The students at SPASH are the main reason why we question the use of Chromebooks. Many students were confused about the decision for everyone to switch to Chromebooks. Seeing as before covid, we had bigger, and better laptops, that were capable of running Windows. But ever since march of 2020, we began to use Chromebooks. They are questioned because they are slow and unreliable. And really they don’t compare to the far superior Windows Laptops. 

The decision to switch to chromebooks was a puzzling move. But many other schools have also changed their computers for students. But in retrospect, you would think that when we moved strictly online, we would’ve had the best possible devices we could have. But we didn’t, in fact, we got the cheapest alternative to the laptops. 

The main problem sticking out for chromebooks is the fact that they cannot run any form of windows. Really, all they are capable of is being an internet browser. As stated by spash student Ben Fonti “compared to my desktop at home, it barely keeps up when doing school work”.

And Students are always having problems with their devices.  According to  Bryan Casey, the director of technology here at Stevens point school district, “Getting help for staff and students never ends, we have to deal with security, hardware, and software problems.” Chromebooks have a lot of issues and they are becoming harder and harder to fix. 

Another big issue for Chromebooks is signing in. Chromebooks have to be updated so often that a lot of times students will lose their tabs when signing back in, and it can be very annoying to deal with, especially with big assignments that take very long. According to spash student ben fonti he says “it has happened over and over again to me, and it is very frustrating”. 

According to Bryan Casey, “there was really not another option for students 9 through 12.”it was more of a forced option, there wasn’t anything else for them to do. This shows how the Chromebooks were a last minute replacement, and was the last option. 

A quote from Bryan Casey “Chromebooks are affordable, lightweight, durable, and have long lasting battery life. Bryan also goes on to say that you can access windows 10 on a chromebook, but it is very slow and not very reliable. 

I was in a game design class last year, and we had to use citrix workspace and it was painfully slow. I honestly couldn’t get work done at home, and I couldn’t imagine what it would be for kids that had bad internet.

Quote from Ben Fonti “a teacher showed me how to use the citrix workspace remote computer, and it never was a viable option for me.” Ben was never able to get anything done on his Chromebook using the citrix workspace. 

Chromebooks are becoming an annoying hassle for students and are even getting in the way of learning. But the question is can we provide every student with a windows laptop, maybe not. but even if we had some type of a laptop that ran windows 10, it would set our students up for much more success.