Chromebook: 8 months later

I can see definite uses for the Chromebook that I was given to test.  I haven't posted many accessibility issues because, for my students with reading disabilities or Deafness or autism, we have not had many.

The few we have had included:

• An inability to configure a visual alert for the student who is Deaf, which meant she had to keep her eyes on the screen and couldn't also watch her interpreter.  She was happy to use the Chromebook to practice math and science skills in advance of the state testing, however, and felt that it helped.

• Problems with plugins that allowed read out loud that was more appropriate for my students (as I said in my first post, I did not think my students would like Chromevox, and I was correct; they felt it was overkill since they didn't need it to read the entire screen, only the text).

•  Problems with loading MS Word and PowerPoint files so that students could use the Chromebook to view items that were too far away or to use it as a read aloud for a classroom test.

However, the biggest issue we have with the Chromebook is that for this school year, we have not been allowed to add it to the school network.  Our district is having problems with bandwidth, and has limited teachers to one personally owned device  this year.  And, without Internet access, the device is very, very limited.

In fact, without Internet access the Chromebook is really no more than an AlphaSmart; one without even word prediction because all of the apps for the device require Internet access.  So, we're using it for students to take notes.  The students save their notes to a flash drive by doing a "PDF Print".

I did have a concern that the device appears to not back the notes up when I bring the Chromebook home.  I need to explore this more thoroughly, before I say anything, as I suspect this is my user error. 

I suppose the thing that I will never forget from us using the Chromebook these last few months was when a student used curse words to name a file.  Another student found it and was very upset that a peer had broken the rules.  And, because the device wasn't online, I couldn't delete the file.  I had to take it home, sync it, and then delete.  Fantastic.  But, I work with teenagers, so of course this kind of thing happens.

Chromebook: First Impression

I signed up as an accessibility tester for the new Google Chromebook.  I was really excited (probably more than I should be, honestly) to get an email yesterday saying that I'd been accepted into the program.  And for those reading this blog for the first time, I'm excited for a number of reasons: I'm a special education teacher for students with autism, and also teach a self-contained history class, and assist in a team taught (special education/regular education pair teaching) history class.  I also believe in using technology in my classroom, and this gives us another tool to try!  At the very least, we can use it for some of the web creation that we do, like Animoto and Blogging (we use edublogs, because its easier for me to keep track of what the students are doing).  I'm also looking forward to trying out the Read & Write extension for Google Drive since we use RWG in our school district for accessibility.

OK...  back to the first impression...

The machine arrived this afternoon, which was really a surprise because I only received a ship notice 3 hours before FedEx showed up at my door!  Good thing I was home, because it needed to be signed for and I didn't relish a drive out to the nearest FedEx overnight ship terminal (Alexandria, VA!).

The cat was, of course, very interested in the box.  He loves technology, and remains a die-hard iPad fan because it responds to his paws as well as my hands.  

Once I opened the box, the directions were right there for me to find...  Except they were in Braille!  A friend helped me find this: Braille Translator site once I connected the Chromebook to the Internet.

Good thing I found English and German directions right under it (and Spanish, French, along with several other languages!).  It turned out that I didn't need them though...

I took the machine out of the box and was very surprised at how light it was.  I actually think its lighter than my iPad with its protective case.  Its certainly lighter than my Sony Vaio S series (I love it, BTW) which weighs about 6 pounds with the add-on battery.  The downside is that the machine feels more fragile, and I'm a little worried about how it will hold up in my classroom.  Most of my students aren't unnecessarily rough with anything, and we often use my iPad without its protective case (I have to take the case off to hook the iPad to our interactive whiteboard; the dongle doesn't fit with the case on) to play group games or practice in my social skills class.  But, we have had a few accidents this year which have involved a broken digital camera and a dropped whiteboard stylus.

The Chromebook does not have a port that will allow me to hook it to the whiteboard in the classroom.

I tried out Chromevox, and was fairly pleased with it.  Mind now, I'm not blind, and I have no reading disability.  I'll have to ask some students to try out the feature and see if they also find it acceptable.  I am thinking they might not because it reads EVERYTHING, including hyphens and "end parenthesis".  However, I will leave it up to them to decide.  I don't think it will be too hard to get them to use it, because they generally like anything new and shiny.  

I have discovered that PowerPoint slides don't transfer as well to Google Drive, but I'll explore a bit more and see if that improves.

The battery life is advertised at 6 hours, which isn't bad for a laptop, although my Sony is 14 hours with the sheet battery, and 5-7 hours without depending on the settings.  The battery life may have something to do with the screen.  The screen resolution, frankly, was amazing.  It is REALLY sharp.  Again, sharper than my Sony. I didn't realize that the screen resolutions had advanced so much in the 2 years I'd owned my Sony.

I believe the Chromebook will fit in the old iPad zippercase I have, which is nice.  The only reason I don't bring my laptop to school with me more often is because I am not supposed to lift more than 15 pounds: the backpack with the laptop (6 pounds with the sheet battery, give or take a pound), plus the iPad and assorted  school supplies is over 15 pounds.  And the wheeled backpack I bought is a pain in the rear.  Yes, I bring the iPad to school with the laptop because in my team classes, one of my jobs is to make a set of notes for students who have trouble copying from the board.  I can stand in the classroom or move around with the iPad, and cannot do that with the laptop.  However, I can't access the school grading system (web based) or our IEP writing system on the iPad.  I will be testing those out; allegedly both work in Chrome because the district installed that on the desktop machines just after winter break.  

As a side note, I wasn't able to find a Skype client for the Chromebook, and I already know that the Red Cross web-based applications won't work in Chrome.  I've been told the latter by other Red Cross volunteers.  I'm hoping there is a Skype client, because I use that regularly for another group I volunteer with.

For now, this is enough...