Technology is rapidly changing today’s education. In 2014, Montgomery County Public schools spent $15 million to implement chromebooks in middle school and high school classrooms. Although a majority of those devices were specifically donated to social studies classes, today these inexpensive devices have become a staple in almost every single classroom. Chromebooks have created a gateway for online tools such as google classroom, mymcps classroom, and google drive. Some say that the integration of technology has revolutionized classrooms, while others say it has curtailed the access to education.
Chromebooks allow students to access a plethora of resources. Google classroom and mymcps classroom are commonly used tools that allow students to turn in work from a google drive, view class notes, or add private comments. This allows teachers to grade and return assignments by the click of a button, making the process more efficient.
Moreover, an online grading system mitigates the chance of a student or teacher losing a paper assignment. For high school and middle school students, the short transition between multiple periods can cause paper assignments to become extremely disorganized. Google drive acts as an online binder that permanently saves work into selected folders. As a result, students can easily find their assignments in google drive and stay organized.
On the other hand, chromebooks are reliant on one network that is often times very unstable. If the wifi crashes, teachers cannot access online lessons and students cannot work on online assignments. Recently, schools have been conducting standardized tests like PARCC on chromebooks. However, websites can easily crash due to an overload of students accessing it at the same time.
Although chromebooks provide a plethora of educational resources, it also provides access to youtube and gaming websites. Programs like Hapara are designed to monitor chromebook screens and limit websites that can lead to off task behavior. However, Hapara is rarely used in high schools. Rather than efficiently using class time to complete classwork, students are enticed by websites like www.coolmath-games.com
Although using paper may seem old fashioned to most students, it helps students retain information faster. Using tangible objects like highlighters, pens, and pencils to write information down helps many students to not just memorize information, but to also annotate or analyze information.
One major issue with paper is the impact it creates on the environment. The use of thousands of pieces of paper per school further contributes to the detrimental impacts of deforestation. In comparison, chromebooks minimize the use of paper and create a more eco-friendly classroom.
Although the benefits of using chromebooks seem to outweigh the cons, each student has their own preference. Some students stay organized better with online folders and prefer to submit assignments online, while others learn faster while using pencil and paper. Teachers should give students the option of completing assignments online or on paper to cater to each student’s learning preferences.
Article by MoCo Student staff writer Ellen Zhang of Churchill High School