At a cost of about $1 million, Lake Forest High School will issue Chromebook computers to all freshmen, juniors and seniors in August, said Assistant Superintendent Barry Rodgers.
This year’s incoming class of sophomores was issued Chromebooks at the beginning of last school year, as part of a pilot before the program was launched school-wide.
Prior to last school year, students had access to computers in the school library, computer labs and specialty labs such as filmmaking and computer-aided design. And many brought their own smartphones or laptops to class, he said.
“It was really kind of hit or miss,” Rodgers said. “When the students bring their own devices, you bring on a whole set of additional problems. You could have 25 devices, each with a different issue: different speed, access, compatibility problems with software.”
The aim of issuing laptops is to teach students “21st-century skills,” Rodgers said, including critical thinking and collaboration.
“Technology is ubiquitous,” he continued. “Teens are using technology over ten hours a day, according to some studies. How do we get them to use it more thoughtfully?”
Giovanni Benincasa, curriculum director, has a few ideas. Among them is changing where writing assignments are done.
“Writing is the most intellectual task we ask students to do in the humanities,” Benincasa said. “Students work in isolation. Then they give (their writing) to me and I disappear. I give it back to students with my shorthand thoughts. The hardest task is being done by novices in isolation while the teacher is not present. As a teacher, I should be present when they are doing more complicated work.”
Instead, Benincasa suggests that writing could be done in the classroom.
“You can walk among them, and if a student is having trouble, you can have a two or three minute exchange,” Benincasa said. “That way they have intervention early in the process that is actionable. Before, the tools weren’t in the classroom.”
Other ways laptops could be used include running simulations in laboratory courses or quickly looking up sources of data in social studies courses.
“A scholar could look at sourcing and how that goes into bias,” Benincasa said. “Why are these numbers being presented and those numbers are not part of the conversation?”
Laptops could also allow students additional ways to complete assignments. Last school year, when Chromebooks were issued to all freshmen, one freshman did an assignment on an East African village. Benincasa explained how she used the game Minecraft on her laptop, constructing a village and creating a tour of that village using video and voice over — which was beyond what the assignment required.
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“Her discussion and description of the village was the best learning part of that assignment,” Benincasa said.”
The school has also created at “yoga studio” where teachers and students can go for technical assistance and suggestions on different ways to use the laptops for teaching or learning. Last school year the studio had more than 1,000 visits, mostly by teachers, said Benincasa.
Teachers will be able to monitor the student computers and lock them down if students are looking at websites teachers don’t want them to. The laptops are also programmed to prevent students from going to websites the district prohibits.