Chromebook Review by 9th Grade Student Chase Hoots

Chase Hoots, 9th Grade 

How can the Chromebook help me? Our school recently introduced Chromebooks to the students. Already there have been many benefits and some drawbacks. Lets explore how I have used them in my classes and the problems I have noticed with them.

I find the Chromebooks do contain many benefits. Most of my classes were easily able to introduce them and put them to use. This is good considering these were received in the middle of the year. They make taking notes in classes easier and faster for most students. We don’t just use Google Docs. We often use the Google Drawings with docs. We used both in my economics class. We created a production possibility curve, designed a product, and were able to list our factors of production with ease. What made it even better was that we were able to put it on one document for our teacher. The Chromebooks came to good use in our physical science class. We were able to use them to easily insert periodic tables and make our notes much more organized and easy to read. We are going over Romeo and Juliet in my English class. Our teacher assigns many writing and essay prompts and questions. The Chromebooks make it simple to type the assignments and email them to her.So papers don’t get lost anymore ( I guess the “my dog ate it” excuse is obsolete). Even my most physical class, AFJROTC, was able to use the Chromebooks to determine how much to increase our physical fitness scores. We use them in my geometry class to access our textbooks online. The online textbooks come with many more functions. We are using them in Spanish to do research projects on Spanish culture. We use the translator as well. While we don’t use them in band, I find there are many applications that could help me with band. I also find that using email is a very efficient way to communicate with teachers and other students. Also, Google Docs allows the teachers to see when the document was last edited. This makes it easier to determine if the project was done on time.

While there are positives to this, there are a few negatives to having students use the Chromebooks. While there are good applications for learning available for the Chromebook, there are many unnecessary apps that can distract students from learning. Students are also prone to misusing the Chromebooks to do stuff like search inappropriate things. Students might miss out on something important if they forget their Chromebook at home. The same follows if a Chromebook breaks and is sent for repairs. They are also small enough that while one is typing, your hand can brush the trackpad and cause your mouse to go anywhere on the screen.

I find that the Chromebooks have both their positives and negatives. However, I believe that the benefits greatly outweigh the risk. Hopefully this might help you if you're considering Chromebooks for your school or personal use.