D.O.E Devices– How Are Those iPads and Chromebooks?

Camille Dillon-Eirich, Grade 10, Staff Writer 

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    In many High School of American Studies classrooms, class can end in a rush to pack up and reorganize the classroom. In some cases, Chromebooks or iPads were used to upload work, do research, or complete an assignment. Common Sense investigates the process during the return of devices.

    Usually, when used, there are repetitious instructions from teachers to ensure Chromebooks and iPads are put away in their designated carts after they are used. 

  When the students arrive at the carts, what they can encounter is a jumble of wires. Elsa Villagomez(‘28), says that in her Spanish class, iPads are often “just thrown on top of each other.”

    All of this can cause significant issues for students and teachers. According to Tahel Rasouly(‘27), being in a “rush” doesn’t help this process, especially in classes like Physics, as iPads are used to upload photos of quizzes to Google Classroom at the end of class.          

    Even after a refrain about whether all iPads are plugged in, there are often some left over. It can fall on teachers to take them back to their proper place. 

  Ms. Crosland, AP English Language and Composition teacher, says that while she only uses technology about “10 percent of the time in class” (it’s “unreliable”), it takes “at least 15 minutes” for her to put away improperly plugged in iPads or plug in the ones sitting on top of the cart. 

    She acknowledges that using devices is helpful “depend[ing] on the task,” noting that they are “very worthwhile” for “peer editing and writing exercises.” 

    When iPads are used, signing in, according to some students, is a big problem. Students must open an app, such as Google Classroom and log in, after logging out old accounts. 

    This is not the end of the story.

    Instead, according to Elsa, there is a “glitch” where as soon as the student ‘logs on’, the old account that was signed out of will reappear, along with all of their assignments, materials, and grades. 

    Elsa says that sometimes “no matter what you do” you “can’t log out of their account,” so students would, at least at the start of the year, go to the office to try to get it fixed. Now, the office just “doesn’t take [iPads] anymore.” 

    Elsa says that for her, with all of the issues logging in, it can take away up to 20 minutes of class time and then there’s “not much time to do the assignment[s].” This has caused teachers to use paper instead. 

     Tahel says that since Department of Education technology is “mediocre,” she “wish[es] they could fix the glitch where you sign out but don’t actually sign out.” 

    Gauvain Hardouin (‘28), says that this process takes a “fairly considerable” amount of time away from class and says that there is a "consensus” among students that the situation is “not good and needs to be improved.” 

     Even still, some argue for using iPads rather than chromebooks. While Tahel says that she prefers to work on computers, it is a problem for her that “you’re permanently on chromebooks.” 

   However, she believes that if the problem could be fixed, she would then prefer Chromebooks. 

    Ms. Crosland also believes that if there were a choice between buying new iPads or buying new Chromebooks in the future, she would choose Chromebooks to avoid all of the problems with iPads. The HSAS community appears to agree: Chromebooks over iPads, paper over Chromebooks. 

    Along, of course with a pencil or pen to write with.

The view of DOE Chromebook post MAP Testing, with scores covered in editing (September 27th, 2024)