Christina Jarvis
The Lee’s Summit School District brought chromebooks into students educations in the fall of 2015. Every student has had homework on a chromebook, but not every student likes that story of learning.
Freshman Quinn Cox said she believes that chromebooks improve student education. “I like that when we use our chromebooks were helping the environment by saving paper” Cox said. Quinn said she enjoys the chromebooks because you can contact your teacher about a question without having to wait until the next day.
Chromebooks can allow teachers to grade papers online, providing instant feedback to the student. This is helpful to students so they can better plan ahead for retakes, and can also help reduce stress and anxiety. Students can also check their grades anytime and be aware of missing assignments.
When students are better aware of their grades, they know which classes they need to study more for. Quinn said she thinks that using chromebooks will help develop more useful skills. “We live in generation where technology is everywhere,” Cox said.
Freshman Aleah Jakobe said she enjoys the use of chromebooks. Jakobe said she thinks that chromebooks make research papers faster and more efficient. “It’s a lot easier to find stuff on a database than having to search through all the books” Jakobe said.
Aleah said she enjoys having access to websites like schoology because she can get instant updates and reminders. “One downside to chromebooks is that you don’t remember what you learn as easy when you type it” said Jakobe.
Freshman Abi Green dislikes chromebooks. “It’s not fair to some people who don’t have wifi at home” said Green. If a student doesn’t have wifi, they have no way to get their homework done. Homework on a computer can also be difficult if a student is not at home. Students can use hotspots, but that uses their personal cellular data.
Although some public places like coffee shops have free wifi, students may not be able to get a ride there. Abi also believes that with the amount of technology students are using, we won’t develop as good of communication skills.
Students chat online using Google Hangouts, an app to communicate using messages and video calls. When students work on collaborative work online, they often don’t talk as much with their peers and just stare into their own screens. When students email teachers questions instead of talking them, they lose part of that social interaction.
Along with that, Green also believes that the technological issues that go into chromebooks aren’t worth it. “A lot of kids in my classes don’t have their chromebooks charged so they can’t do any of the work” said Green.
