For Glen Cove schools, the future is Chrome(book)

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In the coming school year, the Glen Cove School District will expand its one-to-one Chromebook initiative to students in grades eight through 10.

The program started last year with the introduction of Chromebooks — a small laptop produced by Google — to students in grades six and seven. Teachers in those grades were also given Chromebooks and professional development training that taught them to use Google Classroom, software that the tech company created to help teachers organize.

Dr. Michael Israel, the assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction and technology, is excited to bring Chromebooks to the high school, and said that they will, “help prepare students with the 21st-century technology they need to be college- and career-ready.”

The decision to get the Chromebooks came after testing out the one-to-one initiative with iPads — touch screen tablets that are, in their simplicity, similar devices to Chromebooks.

After a few years of the iPad trial, surveys of students, teachers and parents indicated that there was a need for a machine with a keyboard. As the new Chromebooks are distributed, the iPads that they replace will be passed down to the elementary schools.

To get the one-to-one initiative going last year, administrators visited other schools who have had success integrating the Chromebooks into their classrooms, Israel said, adding that a consultant had worked with the district and the Board of Education’s technology committee to make sure the transition went smoothly.

In part, to help the district through the change, a new instructional technology coordinator, Justin Lander, has been hired. Lander is the former technology staff developer at Great Neck South Middle School. He had worked on the same one-to-one Chromebook initiative project there, growing the program from 30 laptops in the school to nearly 900 being used daily.

Lander spoke about the importance of meeting kids where they are in their current digital spaces. “Kids these days have the entirety of human knowledge at their fingertips,” he said, “These Chromebooks will provide an increased opportunity for learning and allow students to move beyond the remote information of the machine, and to collaborate and think creatively.”

While the district has high hopes for the Chromebooks, some parents and teachers are skeptical that this was the right decision.

Several Glen Cove teachers declined to comment about the situation, but one, who asked to remain anonymous, fearing reprisals from administrators or parents, said that she has some “anxiety” about how the Chromebooks will be translated into classroom use.

The training that teachers have received so far doesn’t fully equip them to handle certain situations, she said. “What if the WiFi goes down,” the teacher asked rhetorically, “or if a kid forgets their Chromebook at home?”

At the beginning of the summer, teachers were given Chromebooks, so they could get acclimated to them before the start of the school year. So far, they have had one official training, with another one scheduled for Superintendent’s Conference Day at the end of August.

The teacher said that technology like Chromebooks was “temperamental,” and expressed concern that dealing with technical issues would cut into teaching time.

She added that all textbooks and packets will be digitized, which could cause problems for students who learn better with hard copies.

The Chromebooks, this teacher said, would be “just another screen that kids are becoming too reliant on.”

Kimberly Conte Velentzas said her son received a Chromebook last year as a sixth grader. “Of course, he loves it,” she said, “However I don’t feel the need for our children to be plugged in more than they already are. I’d love to see the money spent on this initiative go to other resources.”

The district’s long-term goal is to continue expanding the initiative to students in the 11th and 12th grade in the upcoming years. The district said that over the course of the year they will be evaluating the Chromebooks implementation process and the budget to see if they can get the whole high school equipped with the laptops by the 2019-2020 school year.