should I buy my kid a Chromebook? Which one?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I got my 1st grader a chromebook from Samsung. They have military, student and government discounts. I suggest getting something with a mouse because, I learned from Kindergarten that the kids need to know how to use a mouse as they take assessments on the cpu. It was a big learning curve for most students who are used to touchscreen and lefties.

You can add a USB mouse (wired or wireless) to any chromebook.

[Anonymous]

I find it suprising that so many people who can afford chromebooks/tablets are just getting them from the school system vs spending $200 that they didn't use for a summer vacation.

[Anonymous]

For older students, do not buy a chrome book. Buy a cheap laptop with webcam. If you can afford it, buy one with touch screen capability. It will be well worth the investment. Chrome books do not work with many lockdown browsers for testing.

We invested in a surface pro last spring and it was the best decision. Our daughter was able to annotate PDFs, share and write on a whiteboard, and has a great webcam and microphone. I also recommend a second monitor for Zoom classes. I know this is all expensive. I am a high school teacher and I purchased over $2000 of technology including a Wacom tablet to make my classes easier to deliver. Zoom is so much easier to navigate when you can put the control portion on the laptop and teacher's screen on main monitor.

Obviously not everyone can afford this (including me!) but I want this whole DL thing to go as well as possible. I have been prepping for weeks and it is not going to be close to a face to face class but I will do my absolute best. I do wonder about teachers who just think they will 'wing it' or are not preparing now. I guess those teachers are the reason we have such a bad reputation right now. Some of us believe we are essential workers and that means working more hours than usual. It also means little sleep as we also try to home school our own children. And, yes, it drives me CRAZY when my kid's teachers just call it in. I am on the lower pay scale but I never got into teaching for money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got my 1st grader a chromebook from Samsung. They have military, student and government discounts. I suggest getting something with a mouse because, I learned from Kindergarten that the kids need to know how to use a mouse as they take assessments on the cpu. It was a big learning curve for most students who are used to touchscreen and lefties.

You can add a USB mouse (wired or wireless) to any chromebook.

We did that and it works great. Thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I got my 1st grader a chromebook from Samsung. They have military, student and government discounts. I suggest getting something with a mouse because, I learned from Kindergarten that the kids need to know how to use a mouse as they take assessments on the cpu. It was a big learning curve for most students who are used to touchscreen and lefties.

You can add a USB mouse (wired or wireless) to any chromebook.

I guess i should have said to get something that is not touchscreen. We did that and it works great. Thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it suprising that so many people who can afford chromebooks/tablets are just getting them from the school system vs spending $200 that they didn't use for a summer vacation.

+1

I have been using my son's chromebook for the last couple months and it's great for browsing the web, e-mail, zoom, etc. The only downside so far is that you obviously can't use it to edit videos and not having a hard drive to save documents feels a bit strange after using a hard drive for 30 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I find it suprising that so many people who can afford chromebooks/tablets are just getting them from the school system vs spending $200 that they didn't use for a summer vacation.

Oh we're going to have this argument again? The school district is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on buying technology for students so why not use the school provided option and then pay out of pocket if that's not working?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find it suprising that so many people who can afford chromebooks/tablets are just getting them from the school system vs spending $200 that they didn't use for a summer vacation.

+1

I have been using my son's chromebook for the last couple months and it's great for browsing the web, e-mail, zoom, etc. The only downside so far is that you obviously can't use it to edit videos and not having a hard drive to save documents feels a bit strange after using a hard drive for 30 years.

There are cloud-based video editing platforms like we video

[Anonymous]

MCPS is providing all elementary school students with new touchscreen chromebooks.

[Anonymous]

Chromebooks suck. Get a cheaper laptop instead

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is providing all elementary school students with new touchscreen chromebooks.

Source?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Chromebooks suck. Get a cheaper laptop instead

I know.

- starts up in 5 seconds
- battery lasts 20 hours
- fewer virus issues
- quick and auto updates
- lightweight and durable
- simple to use

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is providing all elementary school students with new touchscreen chromebooks.

Source?

The plan they just sent out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is providing all elementary school students with new touchscreen chromebooks.

Source?

The plan they just sent out.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/reopening/MCPSDraftRecoveryPlan-updated.pdf page 29
"All elementary students will get a new touchscreen Chromebook. Students who have an older MCPS Chromebook will be able to swap it for the new model prior to the start of the new school year. "

I hope this means that teachers will be able to run GoGuardian. With that, they can monitor students and what they are doing on the chromebook, and they can either take over a student screen or mirror the teacher screen to a student, to help the students understand a task. It would reduce some of the parent complaints about not being able to monitor their kids all the time on the computers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS is providing all elementary school students with new touchscreen chromebooks.

Source?

The plan they just sent out.

https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/reopening/MCPSDraftRecoveryPlan-updated.pdf page 29
"All elementary students will get a new touchscreen Chromebook. Students who have an older MCPS Chromebook will be able to swap it for the new model prior to the start of the new school year. "

I hope this means that teachers will be able to run GoGuardian. With that, they can monitor students and what they are doing on the chromebook, and they can either take over a student screen or mirror the teacher screen to a student, to help the students understand a task. It would reduce some of the parent complaints about not being able to monitor their kids all the time on the computers.

One of the biggest perks of GoGuardian is that you can push websites out to students so that way everybody automatically gets to the right website as soon as they log in.

However, I wasn't sure if you can actually use GoGuardian remotely.