PC vs Chromebooks in Schools. The resistance... is futile.

[Witness]

I'm a school board member for my kid's school - a PTA like organization that funds programs, and augment staffing for the elementary school. Some time ago, the principal had requested from our organization to fund the acquisition of laptop computers to be used in the classroom. It stalled over a debate where one member argued for Macbooks or iPads, another for Chromebooks, and me for PCs - hybrids actually. Fast forward a year later, and Mac/iPad guy thinks we should just go Chromebooks (he doesn't like MS). It's progress, but I'm still in the PC camp, yet I'm not completely opposed to Chromebooks.

Here's the thing. I embarked on an exploratory journey on determining which platform to pick with another guy. In talking with the school district director, the principal himself, and some board members - it feels like everyone just wants to go with Chromebooks. A choice I feel that wasn't completely grounded on the understanding of the platform, or from the IT perspective - a terminal computer that would be easy to support. All everyone can say is that it's cheap, it's simple, and teachers who were using their favorite teaching software would be able to find an equivalent "App" for the Chromebooks. The key points I try to drive home are:

-A CB is just a web browser, which a PC can emulate just by running Chrome and can run thousands of other software programs
-A CB cost around $200, and a Celeron/Atom laptop can be had for the same price
-A PC offers the flexibility of living in the Google ecosystem, or also using whatever PC software that meets the teacher's need so risk is minimized
-"Apps" on the CB are generally just bookmarks to a web app that can run on any web browser
-Use real productivity applications on PC with MS Office vs Google Docs
-Trying to buy any paid add is a convoluted process
-Because our kids now need to learn how to type, I used an example where the online version (CBs) Typing Tutor software would cost $30 per year/user, but cost $8 as a software download (PCs) through Amazon

Going for the CBs however are:
-District pricing with 3yr warranty for CB is $350 vs $500 for the PC - a pricing differential that is ridiculous, and was chosen for enterprise level ruggedness because kids
-Simply easy to maintain since there'll hardly be any maintenance

Anyways, it's not an unknown fact that Google has made major headway in the education market and has billed themselves as being cheap, fast and easy. They've succeeded because that's what everyone thinks, and the school district's IT department prefers this direction. So , resistance is futile. I don't have a more compelling argument to go PC and overcome the $150 cost differential. BYOD was an option which would equalize the price difference, but we would lose out on the warranty which would be nice to have.

What do you think? Is this a battle worth fighting anymore? We'll have around 100-150 units by the end of the project, and I'd rather these kids grow up learning enterprise level software with the flexibility to do things like video editing if they wanted to on a PC. I feel so ranty....:eck:

 

[Laura Knotek]

Have you contacted Microsoft? Affordable Windows Devices for U.S. Schools

 

[tgp]

I'd rather these kids grow up learning enterprise level software with the flexibility to do things like video editing if they wanted to on a PC.

In my opinion, this is your most valid argument.

On the other side, my employer had a contract with 2 different local school districts to service their student laptops. It was a nightmare! The student user profiles were restricted, which made so they couldn't install much of anything, including some things they needed. And there were plenty of other issues too, with both hardware and Windows.

Administrative control is one area where the Chromebook shines. As long as the apps your school needs are available, I don't think it's a foolish idea. Maintenance is another huge advantage of the Chromebook.

The Chromebook is becoming very popular in education. Low initial cost, low maintenance, and ease of control are the big reasons. A Chromebook is not nearly as capable as a PC, but it's capable of what most school districts need. They restrict their PCs so much anyway.

Elementary students aren't going to be doing things like video editing anyway. And if they do need to know that later, they'll pick it up quick enough. Most families have PCs at home.

Sent from whatever device I happen to be using today using Tapatalk

 

[Laura Knotek]

Elementary students aren't going to be doing things like video editing anyway. And if they do need to know that later, they'll pick it up quick enough. Most families have PCs at home.

That's a good point. The OP did not mention how old the kids are, so we don't know if they are grade school, junior high or high school students.

 

[tgp]

That's a good point. The OP did not mention how old the kids are, so we don't know if they are grade school, junior high or high school students.

The OP mentioned elementary school in the first sentence, but no it's not 100% clear that that's who this is for.

I also want to make it clear that I am most definitely NOT a Chromebook fan! My wife has one and loves it, but I never got on to it much. I'll use my PC thank you! But with my experience of a few years servicing school laptops, I feel that at this point the Chromebook is a better option. That of course assumes that all necessary apps are available.

Sent from whatever device I happen to be using today using Tapatalk

 

[anon(9057135)]

If you don't want kids to download programs, Chromebook. However, some classes require programs only available on Windows

 

[Witness]

Have you contacted Microsoft? Affordable Windows Devices for U.S. Schools

Thanks. I actually started dialog with the community rep at the local MS Store a while back. I was considering RTs at the time, but needed more. Then the project stalled. This is a good link though.

In my opinion, this is your most valid argument.

On the other side, my employer had a contract with 2 different local school districts to service their student laptops. It was a nightmare! The student user profiles were restricted, which made so they couldn't install much of anything, including some things they needed. And there were plenty of other issues too, with both hardware and Windows.

Administrative control is one area where the Chromebook shines. As long as the apps your school needs are available, I don't think it's a foolish idea. Maintenance is another huge advantage of the Chromebook.

The Chromebook is becoming very popular in education. Low initial cost, low maintenance, and ease of control are the big reasons. A Chromebook is not nearly as capable as a PC, but it's capable of what most school districts need. They restrict their PCs so much anyway.

Elementary students aren't going to be doing things like video editing anyway. And if they do need to know that later, they'll pick it up quick enough. Most families have PCs at home.

Yeah, there isn't too much I can say that would make CBs a bad route to go. Sure, there are a number of reasons that make it not great, but good enough seems to be the mantra that is aiding its success. I find it very ironic that things like these limitations on apps and functionality are overlooked on CBs, but Windows RT was slammed for its limitation. Well, as I mentioned before the ease of maintenance is definitely a plus. The granularity of of security controls for Windows are either a godsend to some, or a complicated mess for others. I was going to obtain elevated rights to administer the PCs on site, but it won't be possible with the CBs - I'm either a user, or I can administer every workstation in the school district. So, I'm not getting admin rights. As for software, the kids will use Word and PowerPoint (or well, the Google equivalent which would be "good enough"), but the 5th grade kids have been wanted to do some video work as class projects.

The OP mentioned elementary school in the first sentence, but no it's not 100% clear that that's who this is for.

I also want to make it clear that I am most definitely NOT a Chromebook fan! My wife has one and loves it, but I never got on to it much. I'll use my PC thank you! But with my experience of a few years servicing school laptops, I feel that at this point the Chromebook is a better option. That of course assumes that all necessary apps are available.

Sent from whatever device I happen to be using today using Tapatalk

CB/PCs will initially be distributed to 4th/5th graders first, then K through 3rd after.

I'm actually using a 2011 Samsung Chromebook to write this out right now. It's a loaner unit from the district to get a feel for it, and to get the teachers to try it out. It is very much lagging right now. Loading pages on WindowsCentral takes a bit, and even typing this out there is a slight keystroke delay. I heard the new CBs have an Intel chipset, so maybe it'll run as fast as that $150 Acer Celeron I got on a deal from MS Store last week.

If you don't want kids to download programs, Chromebook. However, some classes require programs only available on Windows

About the only requirement for software is whatever specification needed on the web browser for student testing. Both the CB and PC support it. The kids won't break the CB's software for sure. I'd like to see Windows have a simpler means of running in an almost kiosk mode for school use.

 

[Witness]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts. As mentioned in my previous post, I'm actually writing this out on a Samsung Chromebook circa 2011/12 as a loaner from the school district. It's laggy, and the touchpad is a little buggy, but maybe because of the district configuration-bloat or that it's a used CB.

I'll be handing the loaner CBs to a couple teachers next week for them to trial, and likely to pull the trigger on purchase soon after. It's a futile battle to try to change people's mind on this since some of them just feel MS is old/outdated, are Mac users, have a positive opinion of CBs despite not ever having used one personally, think that because we plan to use Google Apps for Ed it requires CBs or have already made up their minds on this direction when it was first brought up. It's the same kind of mindset which is why Windows Phones haven't made more headway in the smartphone market.

All I can do now is at least get the district to configure these terminals to use Bing as the default search engine with Bing Rewards turned on.

 

[Jas00555]

OP, I honestly think you're over thinking this. While your particular board may think this way, they're certainly the minority. While your colleagues are doing this, the entire state of Maryland is deploying Office 365 to every school (which means that they intend to use it on a PC)

http://www.windowscentral.com/all-public-school-students-maryland-get-free-access-office-365

My state does this for about 80% of the counties and Kentucky does the same thing for the entire state.

 

[Ordeith]

Google still datamines student Chromebooks. The signing away of rights Google makes the school ask parents for is disturbing. Personally I wouldn't want my kids school data getting used in Google's people analytics experiments.

Office 365 is just as "free" to students as GAFE, and is a much better toolset.

As for Bing rewards, get the parents involved in the program to donate points to your schools so they can get some free surface machines.

 

[srcpt]

I'm amazed your school district's IT department doesn't dictate the choice to you.

 

[Witness]

I'm amazed your school district's IT department doesn't dictate the choice to you.

They support BYOD, and if you think about what schools get in terms of donated hardware, they would pretty much support whatever we use to a certain degree. There's pressure to go one direction, but I'm glad it isn't dictated.

 

[gMaesterUK]

I've always believed schools should only use computer systems used by the majority of companies, so mostly Windows or Apple. What's the point in teaching them to use a Chromebook (for example) if the business the eventually work for uses Windows (most probable)?

Getting children ready for the real world should be the objective here, not personal opinions or budget constraints. Or is my thinking now outdated?

G.

 

[Nogitsune Micah]

I've always believed schools should only use computer systems used by the majority of companies, so mostly Windows or Apple. What's the point in teaching them to use a Chromebook (for example) if the business the eventually work for uses Windows (most probable)?

Getting children ready for the real world should be the objective here, not personal opinions or budget constraints. Or is my thinking now outdated?

G.

This so much. I would want my children learning on Windows or mac vs chromebooks

 

[a5cent]

Getting children ready for the real world should be the objective here, not personal opinions or budget constraints. Or is my thinking now outdated?.

This is a little off topic, but I'd like to know why force schools to spend money on this in the first place?
I'm all for helping kids learn how to think about hardware and software, and understand the internet from a technical perspective, etc, but do they need this equipment for that?
What is it that kids actually learn with this equipment, that will still be relevant by the time they enter the workforce?

 

[gMaesterUK]

My sister is a teacher (11+) where all homework is electronic so she can actively monitor that homework is being done, so kids don't have the excuse that the dog chewed it! Also it saves money on the workbooks. I'm all for making things electronic nowadays, though it's still necessary to be able to pick up a pen & paper!

G.

 

[Witness]

I've always believed schools should only use computer systems used by the majority of companies, so mostly Windows or Apple. What's the point in teaching them to use a Chromebook (for example) if the business the eventually work for uses Windows (most probable)?

Getting children ready for the real world should be the objective here, not personal opinions or budget constraints. Or is my thinking now outdated?

G.

I completely agree. If you're going to teach kids computers, you may as well teach them enterprise level OS and software. Some schools are using iPads which to me makes no sense. Is it because the iPads are easier to use? They're too expensive for public schools, and kids these days can learn these newfangled computers better than we can back in the day. They're growing up with the stuff everywhere.

This is a little off topic, but I'd like to know why force schools to spend money on this in the first place?
I'm all for helping kids learn how to think about hardware and software, and understand the internet from a technical perspective, etc, but do they need this equipment for that?
What is it that kids actually learn with this equipment, that will still be relevant by the time they enter the workforce?

The 4th and 5th grade kids will learn how to search for information on the net, learn to type, and some are learning how to do basic coding. This is a jumpstart to preparing them for the future jobs. By the time they're in middle and high school, operating a computer should be old hat, and if that is the case it is a success. They've mastered a tool. Learning it in school ensures that every student has experience with properly operating this tool, because some kids don't have computers accessible to them, or their parents don't know how to operate them effectively themself. As for relevance in the future - as the equipment changes, so will the equipment change in the classroom. The important stuff is that they're comfortable with it now so they will be comfortable to adapting to the next thing.

 

[a5cent]

The 4th and 5th grade kids will learn how to search for information on the net, learn to type, and some are learning how to do basic coding.

Thank you. gMaesterUK's point about saving money on textbooks and making things easier for teachers made a lot of sense to me. I could imagine that over a two year period such a device could potentially already pay for itself. Use it for four years and you'd potentially have saved the school a lot of money. If that's true I'd say there is nothing to debate.
I don't yet know whether I agree that it's of much benefit to kids however, which is what I was thinking about when I posed that question.
Last I heard there is not a single home (with kids) left in my country without high speed internet access and at least one PC (most households have more PC's than televisions). For places where that is not true I'd also understand the importance of such a program. That just doesn't apply to the society I live in. For learning mechanical typing skills a real keyboard obviously also makes a lot of sense, but again, I'm not sure that means every kid must own the exact same school funded device. In addition to those doubts, I also think a lot of people simply overestimate the degree to which computing devices can facilitate learning and teaching. I did a bit of searching and found this video that sums up my own views quite well:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEmuEWjHr5c
But again, what gMaesterUK said already means there isn't really anything left to debate on whether or not such purchases make sense. They probably do, even if students benefitted nothing from them.

 

[Witness]

An update for those who were interested in this problem that I've been tackling.

A couple weeks ago, I gave up. I gave the board my blessings (as if they really needed it) and agreed to execute the orders for the Chromebooks. Contacted the district for procurement procedures, and when the weekend came I receive an email from the board President. Basically, the teachers have decided that they would like PCs because they know how to operate them and if there issues they encountered, they would be able to help the students.

Wow.

Without rubbing anything in, I'm now in the process of purchasing laptops. I guess, when I gave up, I win at the end - haha. Thanks for discussion everyone!

 

[Harrie-S]

Now you should change the title of your post ;-)