By Christopher Sung ’17

Throughout the country, the current trend in education has seen school districts investing millions of dollars on the latest new devices seen on advertisements and tech magazines. In Montgomery County, the Board of Education spent $15 million last year to fund the first phase of a massive three-part Chromebook Acquisition.

Despite logical opposition to the program, many supporters of the initiative defended the Board’s decision, arguing that Chromebooks would modernize the classroom and become an added benefit for both teachers and students. Yet, nearly a year into the program, many at Sherwood are casting doubts over the supposed educational benefits of Chromebooks.

When Chromebooks were first introduced to Sherwood, many students eagerly waited to use the new devices for their first time. However, after just two months, students realized that many teachers had little idea of how to creatively incorporate Chromebooks into lessons. This is not the fault of the teachers. Rather, the Chromebooks were hard to integrate into the classroom because they were simply what teachers already had access to: computers.

When Chromebooks were used in class, teachers often used them as options for students to take notes with, but even then, most students opted to use pen and paper over the complicated Google Drive programs.

It came as no surprise that all the excitement for Chromebooks among students soon died out and the only place where Chromebooks were seen again was at the library during student government elections. For a purportedly innovative technology platform, Chromebooks failed to impress many students and teachers, as it did almost nothing to change the classroom environment in any substantial way.

This should be troubling news for the County as it struggles to find funding for needed school modernization such as construction programs and teachers’ salaries—380 of whom were laid off last spring.

Although the County purchased Chromebooks to help students, the technology hasn’t lived up to its promises. Instead of further pursing this acquisition, MCPS should now focus on funding necessary projects for education and halting its purchase of Chromebooks for schools. This will hopefully fund valuable school programs.