SLA Media

SLAMedia is a publication of the news for the Science Leadership Academy community. Writers come from the student body in 10th, 11th, and 12th grades. We work in unison to create a functioning paper with biweekly postings on a variety of events.

Chromebooks

The Chromebooks are Coming!

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The Chromebooks are Coming!

by Jesse Shuter and Zoe Schwingel-Sauer

Staff Writers

Photo Courtesy of http://www.inferse.com/11164/dell-joins-world-chromebooks/
Photo Courtesy of http://www.inferse.com/11164/dell-joins-world-chromebooks/

On thursday, January 23, 2014, Science Leadership Academy (SLA) along with partners from the Franklin Institute and Dell officially announced a partnership for both computers and learning.

 

The arrangement will provide the incoming Science Leadership Academy students along with the current ninth grade students, the new Chromebook 11. These are not only a brand-new model of Chromebook, but they are the first Chromebook to be made by the Dell company.

 

The grant provides 620,000 dollars to SLA from Dell to be used to buy the new machines for these students, but also create what will be called the Center of Excellence for Learning. This new center will be used to showcase the innovative use of technology in the classroom, as well as help other schools follow in SLA’s footsteps.

 

Science Leadership Academy Principal Chris Lehmann, described the concept of the center as “an everyday Educon.” Educon is an event held each year at SLA where teachers and school officials from all over the world come to SLA to learn about the school’s innovative style of learning. They also come to take lessons from SLA back to their schools so that they can keep growing as a place of learning.

 

Lehmann said the goal for the Center of Excellence was to “create an environment where the learning is transparent.” Essentially, educators come to SLA to learn the style of learning, and take back the lessons and integrate the ideas into their own teachings, in a new way.

 

Lehmann also emphasized that the goal for the center was, “Not so [educators] can go back and do exactly what we do, but to take the lessons that we have learned, and make them their own.”

 

At the official announcement speeches were given by Principal Chris Lehmann, Congressman Chaka Fattah, Dr. William Hite of the Philadelphia School District, Dell Representatives Jon Phillips and Deb Bauer, and finally Franklin Institute CEO Dennis Wint.

 

All speakers emphasized the importance of this new partnership for education purposes.

 

Teachers are excited about the change, and are also relieved about the transition.

 

English and Drama Teacher Matthew Kay said, “Fundraising for laptops each year was an incredible burden for the school each year so the fact that Dell stepped up with this arrangement was a real life saver”

 

Freshmen do not feel the same way. Most Freshmen that were interviewed expressed worry about the Chromebooks’ lack of features.

 

When asked if he was excited about the new laptops, freshman Declin Zisser said, “No, Chromebooks are awful. They have nowhere to put disks in and you can’t download anything.”

 

While some freshmen feel this way, most people at SLA are embracing the change and looking forward to the new laptops.

 

The Laptops are going to be distributed on February 6th, 2014. It remains to be seen how the freshmen will adjust to the new laptops.

 

Macbooks Go Chrome?

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By Jesus Jimenez

Staff Writer

 

MacBooks– The beating heart of an SLA student’s workload.  Without them, it seems almost impossible to complete the sort of assignments given at SLA.

The Chromebooks are a series of laptops developed by Google (and built by Samsung and Acer) that are designed to fully integrate cloud-based technology in a simple and efficient manner.

However, the computers come at a price. Each year, SLA struggles to find the necessary money — around $180,000 per year — to fund the freshman laptops.

This past year, the cost went up slightly when Apple discontinued their regular MacBook series, and SLA had to spend a bit more on MacBook Pros.

Searching for alternatives to the growing cost of the MacBook, both Principal Chris Lehmann and Tech Coordinator Marcie Hull were introduced to the Chromebook by their friends at Google.

Chromebooks are the new thing, with getting inside info from Google employees, Mr. Lehmann saw the potential for Chromebooks at SLA. They provide a whole new definition to productivity by giving you direct access to your google account directly from your desktop.

Addressing one of the major concerns,“The biggest thing they have going for them is the cost.” Chromebooks cost, on average, $199, compared to $1199 for a MacBook pro.

He added to the list of pros: “They are fully built off the Google app system and are designed to be a school computer.”

Ms. Hull has her own thoughts about how the Chromebooks would impact education at SLA. She described the Chromebooks as a “jump start” to what could possibly be a new learning experience for the entire school.

Ms. Hull explained one of the cons for the Chromebooks, saying “There are no executable files, you can and can’t do things”. Meaning, that there aren’t any .app or .exe files found in computers with operating systems such as Macs or PCs.

Loading a new operating system onto the Chromebooks that isn’t based on their default Linux-based one would be one of the learning experiences that Ms. Hull would expect. Finding alternatives to software such as iMovie would be another obstacle if the school were to order them.

Even if software were to be found, the Chromebooks still don’t have the same computing power as a Macbook. While this statement is supported by both Mr. Lehmann and Ms. Hull, the fact that Google’s Chromebooks have the potential to be an excellent tool in the classroom still remains.

The integrated Google Apps (Google drive, Gmail, etc.) system would be very beneficial to the students at SLA. In the past few years, the school has been experimenting with cloud-based technology as a part of our learning.

Enhancing the technology in room 300 would be an investment made from the money saved by purchasing the inexpensive alternative. They would make up for the lack of power and software of the Chromebooks by adding more iMacs with more power and faster speeds.

Regardless of what the decision will be, Ms. Hull said “…with any tool we choose, there is always a lot of work to make a 1:1 laptop program be functional and educational. The true goal is to have the tool disappear and the learning to be what [the students] see”.