Photo by: Delaney Reed

Chromebooks do not have a long history at Metea Valley high school. This is the first year all students were allowed chromebooks to help better their education. Students were given these computers to help save time in classes where they are needed as opposed to laptop carts that take time for students to bring out and log on to. They also help with avoiding the hassle to reserve labs. Chromebooks do serve a healthy purpose to Metea Life, but there are some conflicts when it comes to using these devices.

In a class last year, I had the opportunity to do a test run with the Chromebooks and they worked just fine…at first.

When I was in a class where not all students had a computer, I would feel cool taking out my Chromebook while everyone else had to go grab laptop at the cart. They were also very useful at home when I didn’t feel like going out of my room to get on my family’s computer. Later in the year, however, I experienced technical difficulties with multiple Chromebooks. The first one powered off by itself one day and never turned back on. The next had broken keys so I wasn’t able to type anything correctly. And the last was just unbelievably slow.

This year, my Chromebook is fine. At least when the wifi at school works. How are we expected to get out our Chromebooks at any given moment in class when the wifi in school lags or has issues?

Even though my Chromebook works okay, I have talked to countless classmates with problems with their computers. Some people can’t log into their computers or they have to keep restarting their computer to get it to work. I have had to use a Chromebook in almost every class so far this year and in each class, there was at least one student with an issue.

Charging them will probably be a problem this year, as it was last year. Kids would forget to charge their Chromebooks at night, so they would have to charge them in class. My teachers last year were alright with some people charging in the front of the classroom but almost all my teachers this year said that they wouldn’t let us charge them in class if we forgot. From what I experienced last year, that is a lot to expect from a few high school students.

Now, I am not saying that Chromebooks are all bad, because they aren’t. Chromebooks could be a great thing here in school, but I don’t think we should at all be solely dependant on these devices. They are a nightmare to deal with when they don’t work and technology isn’t always reliable for education. If we reduce the use of Chromebooks, there will be more time for learning and less time wasted on getting these computers to work