I was listening to Windows Weekly and Paul mentioned that the Admin, Teachers, and students all loved chromebooks. My sample size may not be huge, but from my experience Admin loves them, teachers love/like them and students are indifferent at best or dislike them often. The reasons that the students have for being indifferent or disliking them are not really the chromebooks fault, but they seem to blame them anyway.
Recently the district I’m in was doing school wide testing and a lot of the students were getting frustrated that their chromebook kept “crashing”. The chromebook didn’t crash, the wifi at the school couldn’t handle the load and the test was online. Each time it happened a teacher had to come log them back into the test. This was not the chromebooks fault, but perception was that it was the reason.
The chromebooks the district buy are cheap for good reason, but the quality and lack of a touchscreen puts students off also. Some of the software that is used shows multiple choice options to be selected. Students often select the wrong answer on accident trying to scroll down but the slider on the side is hard to select. I try to get them to use the arrow keys but they don’t always work and trying to get them to change is hard. Again, not the chromebooks fault but has an effect on the perception of the students.
A parent asked their kids if they’d like a chromebook for Christmas and they laughed and said no because they can’t do anything fun on them and that chromebooks were only for school. They can’t play Minecraft or Fortnite and this seems to be consistent feeling among most of the students . The perception is that the chromebook is locked down and used to do schoolwork and not much else. They ended up with iPads instead and fully expect that they’ll end up with a Macbook when they go to college.
As I said, small sample size and would say that most of the students appreciate that they have the chromebook for school work but have no desire to own one themselves. I would say that most do like Google services though and Google Docs which is probably more important to Google in the long run but they’d rather access Google docs from a PC laptop or a Macbook.
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#421871">In reply to hrlngrv:</a></em></blockquote><p>I guess it depends on the school and the specific program, but usually there's less emphasis on solving problems numerically but rather learning how to solve the problems through "magic numbers" that don't require a lot of calculator work.</p><p><br></p><p>I think the man-years it took to do the necessary calculations to land a man on the moon scales pretty well with the calculation capabilities of that era but I don't think it offers any insight into this discussion.</p>
skane2600
<p>If it's the OS that is responsible for the slider being hard to select, that's pretty much the OS's fault, right?</p>
skane2600
<blockquote><em><a href="#421865">In reply to jimchamplin:</a></em></blockquote><p>I don't really buy that excuse. If one assumes that developers should avoid including scrolling in their applications because of the way the OS implements it, than the OS shouldn't have included it in the first place or should have made it better. Given the fact that software programs have used scrolling for decades without a lot of problems suggests that this is a Chromebook-specific problem. </p>
Bats
<p>SO basically….what you are saying "students" don't want Chromebooks because they would be forced to use mostly for school purposes. </p><p><br></p><p>Is that correct? (lol)</p><p><br></p><p>So what? They're just kids. Kids know nothing. I even have co-workers and colleagues complaining how some of their kids are so addicted to Fortnite that they even go to bed at 3am or even rarely sleep because of it. </p><p><br></p><p>All in all, nice story, but what's the point? Is the point that kids need to be happy with tech at school? This kinda reminds me of when a friend of mine told me when she bought her daughter a pair of Nike sneakers that she bought at an outlet for about $60. Her kid didn't really like it, because wanted a Yeezy (Kanye West brand) that costs over $300. The point is , kids should never be listened to, unless they are in any form of danger whatsoever. Kids are in school to learn how to read, write, do math, science, etc…… LOL…not to play Fortnite or Minecraft. There is no "real" learning from those games. </p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p><p><br></p>
PeterC
<p>Up here in the north of England it’s iOS iPads and windows laptops in schools. No Chromebooks. None. All student education office 365 stuff. </p><p><br></p><p>I feel the schools chromebook issue is very much a USA thing……. </p>
PeterC
<blockquote><em><a href="#422623">In reply to jbinaz:</a></em></blockquote><p>I can only speak about my little part of northern England, and certainly not other uk regions, but the schools funding crisis means they’re not buying any new equipment.. What they’ve got is in consumer terms already old but curiously as its iOS and windows seems to be lasting better. In theory so would chrome os too I guess. But at some point there will be a cost barrier to upgrades and replacement. I suspect this issue will be the “ hunting ground” of the various brands. </p><p><br></p><p>But google has has a real problem that’s really growing with the UK govt and various law enforcement areas, as do amazon, Facebook and Twitter etc. I can’t see any of them overcoming this barrier easily to supply schools here until they “ bend the knee” in game of thrones style to uk/eu govt and law enforcement. I’m pretty sure at EU level too google are confronted with the same cross roads choice of, change/adjust your business model and you can comply to bid for these contracts or don’t and we legislate and regulate until you do.</p><p><br></p><p>Google are learning theres consequences of their business business model and simply using its sheer size to force through barriers is no longer working. </p><p><br></p><p>in my opinion it’s why a windows lite/ chrome edge office 365 laptop type of product offering from a trusted company like Microsoft who aren’t infringing copyright laws and in theory respecting schools and children’s data privacy etc etc etc will do very well indeed…….. </p>
jedwards87
<p>I am seeing exactly what you are seeing. <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">I work with lots of schools here where I live (US) and most use Chromebooks but nobody wants one outside of school. Everyone agrees they make great school devices but have no interest in owning one personally. </span>My own kids laughed at me when I asked them if they wanted a Chromebook. Both asked "Why would I want one of those". They want a nice gaming computer. For everything else they prefer using their phones. </p>