As a part of the district initiative to implement one-to-one learning, each middle and high school student has been issued a Chromebook for the 2019-2020 school year.
Chapel Hill High School students were able to pick up their Chromebooks at Carrboro High School over the summer or in the media center at the beginning of the school year.
Juniors Bao Dinh and Andrew McLamb are two of ten Chapel Hill High School students who take Cisco Academy classes and assisted in the Chromebook rollout.
The students who helped with the rollout were in charge of cleaning and maintaining the Chromebooks, as well as assisting in the logistics of the laptop distribution.
“I wanted to help with the Chromebook distribution because, not only do I get service learning hours, but it also seemed like a good opportunity to see how the [Information Technology] staff operates in a professional setting,” Dinh said.
The media center and tech department continue to distribute and troubleshoot Chromebooks due to network connectivity and other technical problems with the computers.
“We will continue to swap them out as needed, but we just want the students to be mindful of ways they can help themselves in a crunch,” the school’s IT Technician Walter Jennette said.
The district’s new initiative allows students who might not otherwise have access to technology to have a computer both in the classroom and at home.
“I really think that this will benefit the school because it will help students who don’t have a computer at home to get access to one,” McLamb said. “In addition, students are now able to work on digital assignments during lunch anywhere they wish, which means that students no longer have to go to the library and wait for a desktop to become available.”
Teachers have been using the Chromebooks in their lessons and assigning more online homework.
“Online resources for students are ever growing, and every student having a Chromebook means that each student has access to those resources,” science teacher Shayna Walters said. “This is also a great way for me to collect work when students are injured or miss school.”
Many students feel that the Chromebooks have allowed them to stay more organized and access more resources.
“The Chromebooks have had a positive impact on my classes because they make taking notes easier and completing projects or essays that require research more convenient,” sophomore Kenya Edwards said.
The Chromebooks, though, have coincided with a change in the Wi-Fi networks at the school.
“I think the Chromebooks are useful in class. However, having the Chromebooks does not allow students to connect to the Wi-Fi on their phones,” sophomore Snow Htoo said. “The connection on the Chromebooks is also slower.”
Some students who have their own laptops have noted the Chromebooks are more limited than their personal devices.
“For the kids who did have internet access or even a PC to be able to bring to school, like myself, it’s an inconvenience because now we have to use the Chromebooks,” Dinh said. “Some of the technology classes require software that cannot be downloaded onto the Chromebooks.”
