I think them being locked down is a big part of their agitation. But we live in a sue first society so the school has no choice but to lock them down. It's not like the 90's when I was in school. We were allowed free reign to tinker with the machines.
This resonates. I'm in agony because I'm constantly up against IT and admin who seem to only care about lawsuits so they create an absolutely painful computing environment for the students. I see how using locked down slow machines makes them irritable and frustrated in my class and I just can't anymore. It's a losing battle really. But I need to collect a paycheck lol. In the meantime, anything I can do to make their situation less aggravating I will pursue.
All 3 "Is it how to type? Use Google Docs? How to program?". You nailed it. In addition to being comfortable taking state exams on.
I used to do a deep dive on settings and browser extensions until IT locked the devices down further. The kids can't even access settings. But I give them credit for finding work arounds, ways to get past restrictions.
I think the problem here is relying on Google docs.
The absolute best programmers today got started on command line. You can linux command line on a literal potato. There are vape pens that have more computing power than what I grew up learning on in the late 90s.
You're students need less distractions not more. Even the most powerful AI applications like Claude Code run in CLI.
You can absolutely learn how to program on a $17 raspberry pi zero w connected to an old monitor and keyboard nowadays. Its not about the hardware, it's about what you do with it.
I think I realize the problem after reading many of the posts. What's slowing these devices down is the management software running over them. GoGuardian and whatever else IT has on them.
We also aren't allowed to use an ad blocker anymore. I used to have Ublock installed on all the devices before GoGuardian prevented it. It's a really depressing situation that I imagine will only get worse with time.
As to a few replies asking why students in this age group would need laptops, I'll explain. I start teaching Python in 6th grade. Grades 3-5 use Scratch. Grade 2 uses code.org. K-1 Scratch Jr on Ipads.
We have expensive mac desktops in the computer lab but they drive the students completely insane for two reasons. The keyboard is and mouse are terrible to use. Anti-ergonomic. The second reason is the amount of notifications and questions the students are bombarded with when they turn the macs on. I'm talking like 15 different pop ups or windows opening asking them to agree to this or that. I should probably have a lesson on just closing windows. I could say more but I don't know about social media anymore. I just wanted some suggestions and I appreciate the ones I received.
I don't know your autonomy with regards to IT within the confines of your classroom but if you can't install ad blockers on the Chromebooks can you set up something like PiHole and direct DNS traffic through it? It won't solve the overall slowness of the Chromebooks but it will help with some web sites.
You should open the issue with your IT department and see if they can optimize the performance. You can gather proof that GoGuardian is causing slow downs by looking at it's memory usage in the Task Manager (right click empty area in Chrome tab bar).
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