October 4, 2018
By Victor Chen and Ekaterina Ivanenko
Lexington High School is now giving underclassmen students their own electronics for school work. Every freshman and sophomore will now get their own Chromebook. However, this new development has not been well received.
“Chromebook seemed ... inferior to my computer at home, and that they were oddly heavy for their small size,” Larry Lin, a sophomore, said.
Sophomore Vivi Torontali shared a similar view, pointing out the difficulty with using the trackpad and the awkward transition between the iOS to Chrome OS operating systems.
“I don't think the switch was a good idea as in the middle schools and in the high school we used Macs for a long time, and were proficient in using it, making the new operating system feel strange,” Lin said.his is especially the case as in classes such as Digital Art [where] Macs are still used.”
Perhaps the most glaring problem with the Chromebooks is the fact many students already own a personal laptop, some of which were brought specifically for school use, but now seem obsolete.
“Chromebooks have much different settings and it’s just different in general, so it’s going to take some getting used to, but I would still rather use my own computer,” Navia Ivanenko, a sophomore, said.
For some students, the new policy is already causing trouble in their classes.
“As a debater, now I have to bring two separate computers to school everyday as the Chromebooks can't be used for debate,” Lin said.
Certain students carry more than one device around the school, so distractions are inevitable and their backpacks will be unnecessarily heavy.
Most of the students understand and applaud the school for pushing for the use of Chromebooks to create a more equal playing field for students, but some of the regulations attached to this policy are overly restrictive.
“If technological equality is the number one priority, then I would suggest to instead buy fewer, better computers that would be distributed to those who don't have access to computers, allowing them to be on par on usability but also not impacting others who have devices because they purchased them for last year,” Lin said.
Some may argue that the purpose of giving everyone Chromebooks unifies the class and allows teachers to better monitor student activity. But while ensuring students pay attention is good for the learning process, they can probably find ways around technological restrictions anyways. Either way, students should learn to police their own behavior. If they’re using their personal laptop to play computer games during class, that will reflect in their grades.
Thus, the best solution to solve the current issue of technological inequity is distributing computers to students who need them, not requiring that everyone has the same computer. Any other idea is just a waste of time and resources.
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