Last year, Highland High School began assigning Chromebook laptop computers to all high school students, and principal Angela Hazelett is looking forward to expanding their use in the school. While she feels the initial year with the computers went well, they’re looking forward to having more help integrating them into the classroom. They received a Teachers Leadership grant from the state, and through that they’ll be able to employ full-time and part-time technology integration specialists, which will help them make better use of the Chromebooks.

She feels the kids have enjoyed having the computers because it’s a different way to access learning. The school is currently looking into using online subscriptions for textbooks, so students won’t be as tied to them as they have been. Hazelett said students don’t usually forget their laptops, so they wouldn’t run into as many problems with kids forgetting to bring textbooks. With the updates to their connectivity infrastructure, she said their bandwidth is stronger so it’ll make the Chromebooks that much easier to use. Tonight and tomorrow, Highland will be having their Chromebook rollout events where students can pick them up.