The new Samsung Chromebooks are new additions to PHS that will help students perform tasks that involve the use of the web. The laptops will be available in the library for checkout during the week of the Feb. 25, once all diagnostics are run and the testing has concluded, technology coordinator Jana Branisa said.

“They’re not just a computer, they are a whole new workflow paradigm,” Branisa said. “They are a porthole to all internet apps, there’s no [Microsoft] word on here but anything you can get on the web you can get on here.”

Principal Rich Kitchens has observed that PHS is not where they should be in terms of technology and is actually behind.

“Schools in the surrounding area seem to have better infrastructure which has allowed them to do things with hardware and software that we can’t do,” Kitchens said.

Ideally, students and teachers alike will have the capability of renting these devices for reference uses only as they have no link to the PHS group drive.

“If an English teacher gives students time to write in class, instead of a student writing out an assignment in class and transcribing it at home, they could just type it out,” Branisa said.

The new Chromebooks also have an adapter in which they have the capability to share documents and projects through the teacher’s ELMO document cameras.

“If the student has a PowerPoint or a Google presentation that they created at home and wanted to show it, they could use this device,” Branisa said.

Senior Aaron Abrams said that there are actually some downsides to these new computers.

“My only major complaint about the Chromebook itself is that ‘Google docs’ is the only word processor on it,” Abrams said. “I hate using docs to write because of the massive delay between typing the letters and the letters appearing on the screen.”

While some students like Abrams do not like using Google docs to type, others like it for its easy interface and simple controls.

“I found the transition from Microsoft Word to Google Docs easy and some of the controls are even easier” Senior Evans Hauser said.

The school decided on the Chromebooks rather than tablets due to the devices themselves and what type of environment they fit in the best.

“The tablets are more of a consumption device than a production device,” Branisa said. “At the high school, people are creating things and researching things but these [Chromebooks] respond faster than an iPad.”

The Chromebooks also have some of the same capabilities that students have in their mobile devices but the use of them in class is discouraged in class.

“If you account for the fact that many people have a smart phone that can pretty much do anything that the Chromebook can do and then some, it is pretty redundant,” Abrams said.

In the near future, the school would also like to offer accessible wireless service to all students especially when they can use it in class but they cannot do it because they do not have the wireless capability to have everyone on at the same time.

“Job one is to increase our infrastructure to take us to somewhere that will last us five to 10 years of growth,” said Kitchens.

The district is addressing the problem and performing an assessment and the school board in the next two meetings is predicted to allocate some money to improve the whole district infrastructure, Kitchens said.

“Job two is that we need computers and hardware to handle this new infrastructure and the library has become the go to place to complete all student work,” he said.

Regardless of the proposed iMacs in the school library, room 49 is still out of commission and classes have taken all available spots in the library through the month of March.

“The only problem is that the library is in high demand, with the set-up right now, we are booked through March,” Kitchens said.

Abrams said that these computers may be great addition to those in the library for the purposes of schoolwork and research alike.

“In general they’re way better than the library computers and I can see them being handy for research when the library is already being used by another class,” Abrams said.

This is a three-legged stool: the infrastructure is one leg, hardware is another leg, and professional development for the staff is the third leg.

“About half of our teachers are willing to go to the next level and get to web 3.0 but they don’t have the tools to do it in class so we need professional development,” Kitchens said. “It would be kind of sad to have a nice Rolls Royce out there and no driver’s license.”

These new laptops can be used by students to do projects where the research was previously limited.

“In the past it was writing an essay or doing a poster and these types of activities were limited but what I’m seeing you guys do when given the opportunity, you guys do amazing things,” Branisa said.

Kitchens said he is hopeful that with the Parent’s Club donating a large sum of money to upgrade the library, in turn, the district can start putting up the wires in the walls and increasing the bandwidth so classes can all be online at the same time.

“I could see in four to five years that everybody will have a smart device of some sort, whether it’s a tablet or your own smartphone if you have it we will be doing bring your own device (B.Y.O.D),” Kitchens said.