By: Wesley Tsai
Last year in my literature class, I rarely used a pencil and paper in class for my assignments. This is because we used Chromebooks instead of paper for most of our writing assignments.
These chromebooks were very simple computers that only had access to google chrome and nothing else. Each student was given an email from the school and they had to use that specific email in order to log onto the Chromebook. On a regular day in my lit class, I would get a chromebook from the cart, log on, and type up the writing assignments in Google drive. When the period ended, I logged off from the chromebook and returned it to the cart.
There are many pros and cons to this system. With the Chromebooks, students are able to write much faster. Having the assignments online also makes it hard for students to lose their assignments and they can edit them at any place with a computer. Students can also make edits to their essays with ease and peers are also able to make clearer edits to their paper. However, due to Chromebooks having access to the internet, students might get distracted and end up visiting non-academic websites. Also, if a problem with the internet connection pops up, students can risk losing their progress on their essays.
Personally, I think that the pros of having chromebooks in class outweighs the cons. Even though people might check other websites, teachers can easily fix this problem by walking around the class to check people’s screens. If wifi issues pop up, it is also quite simple to improvise and find a quick solution. Right now, the idea of using chromebooks instead of paper is still a new idea. Hopefully, as time goes on, more schools will choose this method over the use of paper.
