By Alex Yu

When I think of my time in the Middle School, Chromebooks are one of the first things that come to mind. The signature gray shell and Chrome OS used to be a daily sight for students in Collegiate’s Middle School. This is especially true during the COVID-19 era, when Middle Schoolers logged into daily Zoom calls for class on their Chromebooks, spending perhaps more time than they wished they had on them. However, in the last few years, a joint decision between Instructional Technology and Information Technology prompted the switch from Chromebooks to iPads. In conjunction, the Middle School administration team implemented a new discipline system, which includes how it handles tech misuse.

A Chromebook. Photo credit: MarkJFernandes via Wikimedia Commons.

The change first occurred in the 2021-22 school year, when iPads were first given to 7th Graders (who are now Juniors) to test their feasibility. From that year on, iPads would replace Chromebooks as the device of choice for Middle Schoolers to do any schoolwork on the internet. However, given that there is bound to be some difficulty and cost to switching from a previously established system to a new one, one may wonder why this transition happened.

To answer this question, I interviewed Director of Instructional Technology Patty Sinkler, who was partly responsible for the decision to make the change. When asked about some of the factors the IT department considered when deciding to switch from Chromebooks to iPads, Sinkler cited the fact that Chromebooks were constantly breaking and needed to be repaired. On the other hand, iPads were more durable and could be ordered with protective cases. She also mentioned that iPads offered greater creative opportunities than Chromebooks. This includes the benefits of using a stylus to take notes and, “If you’re trying to film something for a project when you’re working on something in class, it’s really hard to do with a Chromebook, you had to turn it around. You could record, but [on an iPad] it’s so much easier to do things like that.”

There were inconveniences to making the change as well. The Middle School had used Hapara Highlights to both manage file-sharing between teachers and students, as well as the ability to view students’ Chromebooks’ screens remotely. Hapara had infamously been used by teachers to “Hapara-Snipe” unsuspecting Middle Schoolers who were misusing technology, frequently to play video games during classes. Said students would then usually be given a demerit for their misconduct. A similar application, Apple Classroom, is now used on iPads to both view student activity and project students’ screens onto the whiteboard remotely for presentations. This is an advantage over the same process done with computers in the Upper School, which often involves fiddling around with a dongle and frustratingly trying to connect to the speakers when connecting students’ personal computers to the projector.

At the same time that the Middle School switched their students to iPads, the Middle School administration also began experimenting with alternative forms of discipline for when students misuse technology. Originally, students would immediately be given a demerit if a teacher discovered they were inappropriately using their devices. However, according to Instructional Technology Coach and Integrator Rachel Rachau, some teachers saw this as too harsh a practice, and so they ended up refraining from giving demerits to offenders. As a result, “Tech Misuses” were introduced to replace demerits, by which offenders would be given a “Tech Misuse” and have to have a talk with Sinkler and Rachau. Nowadays, infractions are given as a warning prior to a demerit in cases beyond just misusing tech, and Tech Misuses have been phased out. Both of these would be given anytime a device was used for non-academic purposes, including online shopping, browsing social media, or playing video games.

Sinkler has cited other concerns regarding the transition to iPads, including the observation that “it seems like a more addictive device for the kids.” In the Upper School, the phone locker policy was controversial among many students when it was first introduced, and a similar policy is in place in the Middle School for phones. When asked how an iPad is different from having an iPhone in school, Sinkler replied that students cannot access the same things on a Collegiate iPad that they could on a personal phone. This is similar to features on Chromebooks that blocked websites deemed inappropriate for student use.***

iPads with keyboards. Photo credit: KKPCW via Wikimedia Commons.

When asked how his experiences using Chromebooks compared to using iPads, Douglas Miller (‘28) stated, “I didn’t like the iPads because they restricted me too much.” Specifically, Miller noted that Chromebooks have greater access to professional applications because they are more powerful, such as SolidWorks, a computer-aided design (CAD) program used for creating 3D models, which Miller uses frequently to model parts for Collegiate’s Robotics Team. Similarly, Andrew Davenport (‘28) cited the increased difficulty to practice his programming abilities on iPads as his reason for disliking them.

On the other hand, Hunt Brabrand (‘27) stated that he preferred iPads to Chromebooks for exactly the same reason that Miller and Davenport disliked them. Brabrand said, “I love Garage Band,” an application he would use to compose songs in his free time. None of the students I interviewed suggested that the use of iPads hindered their ability to learn in school, but were rather more frustrated by restrictions on extracurricular uses. Additionally, in regards to productivity, Brabrand stated, “[The iPads] helped improve my personal and academic planning.”

Middle School English teacher Nicholas Sberna has stated a preference to Chromebooks because he observed that they were easier for students to use than iPads. Brabrand did note that the attachable keyboards that come with iPads don’t work well. Additionally, Sberna also believes that it was easier to identify misconduct when students were using Chromebooks. He stated, “It was easier to monitor student progress on Hapara than Apple Classroom.”  

Overall, it seems that the switch from Chromebooks to iPads, as well as the new disciplinary system, have been largely successful. Despite some difficulty for teachers to adjust to the new devices and some students having great difficulty pursuing tech-related hobbies, the quality of tech-related education has not diminished.