Cloud-based tech comes through for schools in COVID shutdown

Late in 2010 the term “Chromebook” first crossed my desk. Actually, it wasn’t quite that term. It was “Chrome Notebook,” and it referred to a device not actually being offered for sale – the Cr-48, Google’s first attempt at a laptop essentially operating on the search company’s already wildly popular Chrome browser.

Unfortunately the Cr-48 was not made available for testing in Canada, but the approximately 60,000 people who tested it in the United States gave it, despite numerous production flaws, a thumbs up. 

Reviewers at the time were naturally puzzled by a device whose keyboard was missing a caps lock key and whose sole application was a browser. “Where is Photoshop?” and “Where is Microsoft Office?” were common refrains.

Late in 2011 the first production Chromebooks for schools were announced. At my school, I placed an order the day they were first listed for the Canadian marketplace, and in March 2012 the initial set of 36 units, along with a special charging cart, was delivered. My school was the first in Western Canada, and possibly the first in the country, to deploy Chromebooks.

Key to my decision to acquire Chromebooks was the work I saw my colleague Andrew McCracken doing with the then-still-nascent Google Docs, later rebranded as G Suite. Very early on I had demonstrated a precursor product, Writely, to him, and he quickly saw potential for its use in a classroom setting.

In short order he was using cloud-based Google Docs for his four Christian education classes, initially on desktop computers. That use was exactly what a Chromebook was suited to. There was no need for a desktop computer. A laptop that was always connected to the internet – the cloud if you prefer – would do exactly what my colleague was doing with desktops. In essence, the dedicated computer lab could become a relic of the past.

I still vividly recall plugging in and powering on that very first Chromebook, a Samsung Series 5 unit. It truly amazed me to see it ready for use in 15 seconds. From that day on I began writing this very column on a Chromebook, never having to worry about where it was physically stored, and even being able to edit the column from a phone or tablet when needed.

In my colleague’s classes where he initially had both desktops and Chromebooks, the Google devices quickly became the first choice. It was apparent that these were transformational devices and didn’t require any significant effort to maintain. In essence they were self-maintaining. Sure, there were problems with supporting infrastructure, mainly in the form of rolling out a robust and reliable WiFi service that could scale to demand.

Within a couple of years there were more Chromebooks in the school than there were desktop computers. The business education teacher even made the leap from desktops to Chromeboxes, which are essentially Chromebooks roughly the size of a paperback book.

Over the next two years I demonstrated the Chromebook platform widely. Occasionally I was met with positive reactions, which I call “wow” moments, but mostly there was subtle derision. I recall an education superintendent suggesting the devices would never see wide adoption because you couldn’t install software on them.

In 2014, Google Classroom was released, a management platform that served to broaden the growing appeal of the Chromebook platform. By then, Chromebooks were making significant inroads in Catholic Independent Schools of the Vancouver Archdiocese (CISVA) and many public school districts in the Lower Mainland.

Pasquale Balletta, principal at Our Lady of Sorrows Elementary in Vancouver, became an early fan of Chromebooks. “It was vital that we moved our technology from whole ‘school labs’ into individual classroom settings. The affordability of Chromebooks versus other solutions gave us the opportunity to equip more classrooms and to connect quickly to our Google web-based platforms. We eliminated the need for expensive server management, and the need to register apps to each device, or to each user. All students were registered to our Google school domain.”

Balletta notes that when shutdowns went into effect in March, the school lent out more than 70 devices to families, particularly those with more than one child enrolled. 

“In retrospect,” notes McCracken, “all the work we did in 2012 (at Notre Dame Regional Secondary) to get started on Chromebooks had a massive payoff when COVID hit. Moving entirely into cloud computing on cheap, reliable pieces of hardware meant that many of us CISVA teachers were ready for virtual teaching as soon as the schools were closed: there was zero delay, minimal confusion, and very little stress involved.

“Many CISVA teachers and schools should be proud of their work in adopting Chromebook technology. They certainly saved themselves a lot of hassle in the long run – even if they didn’t have a pandemic in mind!”

Today, Chromebooks are in short supply across North America. Many big American school districts have been ordering them in blocks of 10,000 or so, starting right back in the first week of March. Some brands of Chromebooks have been affected by American trade boycotts, but for the most part the apparent shortage is due to overwhelming demand for the devices.

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