It’s taken a good year, but my staff now use Chromebooks with their children as a first preference. Given the choice they put Chromebooks ahead of our other devices.
We have 30 chromebooks in a Lapsafe charging trolley and 30 Windows PCs in an ICT suite. The teachers know the PCs – they’re what we’ve used for years – they’re comfortable with them. But the Chromebooks are now more convenient.
The 8 second start up means very little lesson time is lost at start up. Even if the odd device does not connect to the wifi first time, a restart takes 10 seconds – and now we have an open Meraki network around the school, devices connect 99% of the time.
The portability of the Chromebook means that they work really well in normal classrooms. Teachers can use them in the room where they are most comfortable.
Google Apps makes a big difference too. Being able to produce work in Google Docs, share ideas in Google Groups and output best work to Blogger means the Chromebooks are really versatile, productive devices.
But what summed it up for me was last week when a teaching assistant was acting as a cover supervisor for a teacher who was absent. This particular lady is not the most confident with technology, saw the plan the teacher had left for her and I gave her the choice – ICT suite or Chromebooks.
“I’d prefer to use the Chromebooks,” she said.
Practical question, from someone who hasn’t used a Chromebook, but does use an Android tablet: what happens to Google Docs if the internet is down/ out of range/ someone walks by with an interfering cell-phone? ‘Cos on the ‘droid, things go seriously pear-shaped; meaning I can’t rely on Google Docs to (for example) take notes in a meeting.
On the Chromebook there’s no problem with using Google Docs offline – I often use it to take notes in meetings even when I don’t have wifi. There used to be something called Scratchpad – just a basic word processor that worked offline, but recently Google have updated the Chrome Os so that Google Docs works really very well offline. You can edit Docs, Spreadsheets and Slides offline – which is a slight improvement from Android where I don’t think you have the Slides option.
I actually find Google Docs easier to use on an iPad than an Android. I find the position of the ‘home’ button really annoying on my Nexus 7 – I’m frequently mid-sentence when I accidentally touch it and find myself back on the home screen.
Hope that helps!