Google’s Chromebooks have become the laptop of choice for may, from individual consumers to businesses, and for quite a few reasons that include cost, easy IT management and more. Cost is of course also a big factor for the education sector which has been implementing Chromebooks in schools for the past few years, now reaching a point where more than half of the computers used in U.S. classrooms are laptops running on Google’s Chrome OS. While not all schools around the country or around the globe have introduced Chromebooks into the system for their students to use, many schools have, like a collection of institutions in the New York City school system. Now, Grayslake High School in Illinois is about to join the existing list of establishments who will integrate Chromebooks into the school for students.
According to the report, Chromebooks will be given to freshmen and sophomore students and is part of the 1:1 computer program that will be in effect for the upcoming school year. There were no details given on whether or not the school plans to expand the computers to all level of students at some point in the future. In total the school has purchased nearly 1,500 Chromebooks for the entire program, picking up 1,425 Chromebooks to disperse to first and second-year students. Although the number of Chromebooks that have been purchased as part of the program is public knowledge, there are no details about which Chromebook models are to be used. The school did mention however that students will be able to purchase the Chromebooks through a year-to-year payment program with the ending cost being about $380.
Although Chromebooks are the clear choice for Grayslake, it wasn’t an overnight decision as the school spent years on preparation for getting the laptops into the hands of students. The school’s Superintendent, Catherine Finger, stated that before voting and deciding to use Google’s laptop solution, the school had tried out various other means of electronic mobile devices to find out what would work the best for their situation, having tested smartphone as well as Apple’s iPads. Grayslake even held bring-your-own-device days. In the end, Google’s Chromebooks saw the most success and were decided to be the best fit following a vote of 6-1 from the school’s board that they should implement a learning program that’s driven by technology.