This article was published in Australian Teacher Magazine - Technology in Education Nov. Edition 2013
I remember first hearing
about the Chromium OS open source project back in 2009. I was working as the
eLearning Leader at a small Catholic school in Melbourne. The concept of a web
based OS made perfect sense to me. It was just before the Microsoft Windows 7
release. Perhaps I was feeling jaded by Vista. Maybe I just liked the concept
of a web based OS after spending hours with my tech (Kieran Nolan) imaging
laptops. I remember we actually pulled all-nighters setting up class sets of
Windows laptops back then. Oh the madness.
We decided to have a go at installing Chromium
OS on some (previously) Windows based laptops. The early builds were
experimental and buggy, but the potential was obvious. We were using Hexxeh
builds. We experimented with both virtual machines and native installs. I was a
long time fan of Linux and I think this added to the charm of the linux-based chromium
OS. After testing numerous builds and configurations we decided that Chromium
OS wasn’t ready as a daily driver. We shelved the project and waited for a
better build or the ‘real’ Chrome OS to be released.
In 2012 I moved schools (and states). I was
hired as the Director of eLearning & EdTech at St. Columba Anglican School
(SCAS) Port Macquarie (Approx. 1000 students & 100 staff). I was given
management of both I.T. and eLearning departments and tasked with bringing the
school ‘into the 21st Century’. The first step in this evolution was
overhauling the school’s network infrastructure and internet connection. After
months of haggling with ISPs (and eventually laying our own fibre) we achieved
100/100 with Optus. We also installed seamless Aerohive wifi. Having a reliable
and fast network is an important prerequisite to any cloud migration including
chromebooks at school.
The second step in our ‘school in the cloud’
migration was improving local tech resources. The standard of school devices
was quite poor when I arrived. The school had acquired some small laptops with
DER funding a few years prior. They connected to the school’s network via
Active Directory and ran Windows XP. The students called them “bricks”. They
were slow and unreliable. We decided to try the new Dell Chromium OS build on
them. Success. The “bricks” became usable machines! We set up a class set and
students began using them. They started up quickly and linked the students to
their school Google accounts.
By late 2012 we had successfully migrated the
school to Google Apps for Education. Chromebooks were already being sold in the
US and used in schools at this stage. I remember engaging in an animated
conference call with Samsung & Staples (during our staff Christmas party).
I expressed how keen we were to get some chromebooks for our students. Our
order was made and we went on Christmas break excited by the prospect of
chromebooks in the new year. Early in 2013 SCAS became the first school in
Australia to deploy chromebooks (Samsung model XE303C12-A01AU). We acquired
them through Staples and enrolled them in our Google domain with the assistance
of Cloud Sherpas. 2013 is also the year that we went BYOT (Bring Your Own
Technology) Years 6-12.
We utilise the chromebooks in two ways. We
have class sets in trolleys that roll between classes and we use them as
‘loners’ to supplement our BYOT program. We use technology to support learning.
Teachers and students decide what learning needs to occur then choose the
technology that best suits that learning. Our bookable school devices include
iPads, Macbooks, iMacs, Dell laptops, desktops, android tablets and
chromebooks. With these devices supplementing our student BYOT devices we have
a smorgasbord of technology to best support and enhance learning processes and
goals.
If you are a Google Apps for Education (GAFE)
school chromebooks are awesome. All of our staff and students have their
documents, mail, calendars, presentations, notes and videos in the cloud. This
means that whatever device they are using (as long as it has internet access)
has all their stuff. This is great in a multi device/platform environment such
as ours. Chromebooks take this portability to the next level. We have set our
chromebooks to autowipe/reset on shutdown. You select this option in the Admin
Console under Chrome Management Settings. When one of our users starts a
chromebook it asks for their Google credentials. This is their school email
address and password. After entering these details the chromebook immediately
links to all their Google docs, apps and settings. In effect, the machine is
intimately theirs for that session. No data or files are lost, ever. Google
Apps also provide revision history so you can restore any previous version of a
document. Apps travel with the user on chromebooks. This means that if a
student installs a web app on the chromebook they are currently using it will
be available on any chromebook they use in the future, immediately. Apps travel
with the user account.
The days of pressing the power button on a
computer and waiting minutes for it to be usable are over. The speed of
chromebooks is one of their best features. Students open the chromebook and
they are operational in seconds. This is invaluable in the context of a lesson.
Battery life on the Samsung model is also excellent. They easily last a school
day. Google recently released chromecast (currently only in the US, hopefully
soon in Australia). This is a small HDMI dongle that allows media streaming and
mirroring from any device with chrome browser to TVs and projectors. The
capacity to wirelessly ‘cast’ to a screen is awesome in class for teachers and
students. At SCAS we have been doing this for awhile with Apple TVs but it is
nice to finally have a cross platform solution for wireless mirroring.
The
thing I love most about chromebooks is their capacity to disrupt established
educational paradigms. At SCAS we skipped the 1:1 mindset. We chose the cloud
and diversity instead. Teachers don’t need to know how to use every device or
app in their class. In many cases the students teach them. Teachers don’t need
to be content experts anymore. We have the internet for that. Teachers don’t
need to be techies to improve learning with technology. We are finally getting
to a place with educational technology where teachers can refocus on the
learning objectives, not the tools. Chromebooks are catalysing this pedagogical
shift. They just work. They get out of the way and let the learning happen. And
in most cases the apps they use are free. They are true portals to learning.
