Since last year students from South El Monte High School as well as all the different schools from the El Monte Union High School District have heard that the district plans to provide students with their very own Chromebooks that they may keep as well as use for school. They also planned to give students their own portable internet access by providing them with a hotspot with limited data that they may use in case they don’t have WiFi at home. 

There are many bright sides to having a Chromebook, and being able to take it to each of your classes. There are students who unfortunately could not have their own Chromebook and use it at home, so they were forced to rely on the library until they received their Chromebooks during registration. One senior who faced this problem was Fernando Flores who said how happy he was to be able to have that freedom and since he was playing sports didn’t always have time to go to the library.

Fernando expressed how the Chromebook affected his life by mentioning, “It has been very helpful because since I also now have WiFi at home I can do all my work there and not have to wait sometimes after practice or come really early to school just to get my homework done.” He thinks the Chromebook helped him boost his grades up since he has more freedom and plans to be able to use it for college since he will be able to keep the Chromebook.

One of our teachers at South El Monte High School, Mrs. Morales shared, “I like being able to use turnitin.com it helps me catch if a student has plagiarized and it also helps students see where they need to comment more, Google classroom is kind of cool that you can share documents and have students working on the same documents, I haven’t used it as much as this year because before I couldn’t rely on the fact that students had access to a computer.”

When Mrs. Morales was asked about giving others homework with the Chromebooks she stated, “Sometimes I worried because the students didn’t have WiFi, so I like now that not only did we give you guys Chromebooks, but there’s hotspots for students who maybe cannot afford to have WiFi at home so now I can feel confident about assigning that kind of work. Also I’m looking forward to what it turns into this year because this is the first year I am going full on and bringing tech into this classroom.” There are many pros to the Chromebooks such as being able to have the freedom to use them whenever and wherever you desire. With all these things given to us many students have the ability to now use them to be successful in their classes, as well as have the ability to get the free availability to use their computers wherever they desire. 

A useful feature of the Chromebook is a tracker in which the laptops can be traced geographically, so those who lose them or get them stolen have the chance to look for them and get them back.  As for those whose Chromebooks get damaged, they can turn them in and get a replacement one to use.

When Billy Morales was asked about how he felt about the Chromebooks he stated, “I enjoy being able to have the freedom of being able to take it wherever I need it, as well as being able to keep it after high school which will help me save money so I can put it towards college.” 

Another thing he stated was, “It’s for my personal use and gives me the ability to do the homework that different classes give me so that I don’t have to go to the library just so I can use the Chromebooks.” 

Students having access to Chromebooks have been a tremendous help at South El Monte High School, as well as the rest of the schools in the El Monte Union High School District. This benefit is just one of many things that make learning at South a great experience.