Nichols Middle School's savvy tech mojo
Wednesday
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I have Google alerts for a number of topics I'm interested in, one of which is "Middleboro". These alerts will send me email when something appears on the internet related to the alert. My "Middleboro" alert might return articles such as "$70M budget passed unanimously without any discussion" or maybe "Town meeting passes Silly String ban after 14 hour debate". My alert recently returned an article on a topic that is near and dear to my heart. The Nichols Middle School (NMS) has rolled out One To One program that gives a laptop to every student. The thing that I found interesting was the kind of laptop the NMS is using - a Chromebook.
Schools all over the country have been putting programs in place to supply students with devices for enhanced learning. Historically there have been largely two choices - Apple/Mac products and Microsoft Windows devices. Apple products such as the iPad work well but come at a premium cost and require significant administration. Microsoft Windows products can be acquired for less money on commodity hardware but come with a premium in the amount of administration they require. They are notoriously prone to viruses and other "bad" software. Back when Windows Vista came out the joke in some circles was that "Vista" stood for Viruses, Instability, Spyware, Trojans, and Adware. The NMS made a very astute choice when they selected the Chromebook as the student device of choice. It is cheaper, almost invulnerable to viruses, and requires very little administration.
What is a Chromebook?
A Chromebook runs Google's Chrome Operating System - Chrome OS - a very stripped down version of Linux that does not require high end hardware to run. That leads to generally lower hardware costs. Chromebooks have a very simple desktop with links to run web applications. Until recently, you were more or less limited to doing things you can do with a web browser. Recent Chromebooks can also run the thousands and thousands of Android apps that you would run on your tablet or smartphone. A Chromebook usually has very little storage - it is designed to keep files in the cloud. Let’s forget about the Android apps for now and consider the Chromebook to be a device that is optimized to run a web browser on limited hardware.
Why?
Why would you want to run a computer that was a glorified web browser with little storage and a low-end processor? Chromebooks run great on limited hardware. They are not designed to analyze the human genome or attempt to fact check Trump speeches. Due to the lower end hardware they tend to have excellent battery life. Since they don't need much storage, they usually have solid state disks. For you non-techies, all you need to know is that the storage is very fast and that Chromebooks start up very quickly. Since your documents are stored in the cloud, you never lose anything even if your Chromebook starts emulating a Samsung phone by bursting into flames 3 seconds after completing an important project.
You can create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, stream movies and music, and all the other thousands of things you do on the Internet.
The Chromebook experience - it just works
You turn on your Chromebook and inside of 8-10 seconds you are logging in. Windows users will be familiar with multi-minute logins that get slower and slower as the months and years pass. Not so with Chromebooks. Chromebooks do not run virus scanners. They apply updates when they are needed without user intervention. Since it is little more than a web browser, the screen pops to life and has generally spiffy performance.
Downsides
Once upon a time I would have said that there were a limited number of things that a Chromebook could do. Newer devices have access to the Google Play Store - which means they can run any of the thousands of apps that Android tablets can run. There are definitely things you can't do with a Chromebook, such as very high end editing of audio, video, and graphics. That said, I would say that the vast majority of computer users would be able to do everything they need to do. Web applications are becoming more and more capable. At this time I would not recommend a Chromebook as your only computer if you needed those sorts of advanced capabilities. If I'm just browsing the web, I reach for my Chromebook.
Google drive and docs
The defacto standard for documents is Microsoft Office - Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. Microsoft has Android and web versions of these tools that you can use on your Chromebook if you choose. Google has their own web based suite of tools that are very capable. They have everything the average person would need, and then some. Your edits are automatically saved to the cloud. Google docs can be shared so that multiple people can view and edit the document simultaneously. This is a capability that I use regularly to collaborate on various projects I'm working on. Google docs can be downloaded in various formats including Microsoft Office, PDF, EPUB, and more.
NMS considerations
Google provides tools for managing Chromebooks in a classroom setting. Kids can collaborate on documents and share them with their teachers. When some kid inevitably destroys their device, they haven't lost any data because it is all in the cloud. They are handed a new device, login, and are right back where they were. Their devices are not becoming infected with viruses every other day. The school IT budget is not going through the roof every 5 years when the fleet of Apple iPads need to be replaced at $700 apiece.
Hats off the Nichols Middle School for choosing the Chromebook. For once I have nothing to complain about.
