Students adapt to new 1-1 technology in schools | IVHIGH Southwest

At Southwest High School, students were provided with their own Chromebook this school year that caused a new 1-1 technology environment.

The distribution of Chromebooks was new for student and staff at Southwest. The technology this school year was something everyone had to adapt to, and it generated many opinions.

Victor Lopez, a 17-year-old senior and member of the SHS Computer Science Club, said the Chromebooks are helping him be a more efficient student.

“With this new technology, I get my work done faster since most teachers are giving homework through Google Classroom, which gives me more free time to do other things I enjoy to do,” he said.

With the new Chromebook mandate, a lot of the school assignments and homework have now moved fully to online. It provides a new source of learning for the students and also for the staff.

“Having the Chromebooks makes doing class work a lot more efficient, and most days I can even finish my homework before the period ends since I get the chance to do the work at a faster pace than before,” Lopez said.

Although this new 1-1 technology in schools has its pros, it also has its cons.

Emily Vizcarra, 16, said she believes that the school should not really just focus on technology and should bring back some elements from before.

Vizcarra wants school to bring back the paper and pencil assignments back. She expresses how she’s tired of always doing assignments online. She sometimes wishes teachers would go back to the old school environment before this 1-1 technology.

“I feel like it’s another liability I have to think of and take care of,” she said. “I believe that the Chromebooks help us in a way, but I just feel like we shouldn’t use them for everything all the time. I wish we could go back to pencil and paper.”

Vizacarra said her and her friends miss the pencil and paper because for them it was easier. Carrying a school Chromebook around for all classes can take some time to adjust to. Students are expected to have their Chromebooks at all times at SHS.

Senior Mason Rodgers, 17, said he believes that carrying a Chromebook in your backpack is hard to remember every day since he has gone all his three years of high school without it.

Rodgers said he finds it hard to get the Chromebooks to fully function when he’s in some of his classes. He thinks the school would be so much better if the Chromebooks actually worked.

“As seniors, we got the old Chromebooks, and I think it would be useful if they worked as good as the newer ones since mine doesn't often load web pages,” he said.

“This 1-1 technology is something our school had to deal with, and it can be good and bad at the same time,” Vizcarra said.

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