RANGELY | Earlier this year the Rangely School District received a $75,000 grant from Chevron to be used for STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) within the district. After staff discussion the district decided to use the funds to purchase Chromebook laptops for every student grades 3-12.
The district made the decision to go with laptops for a variety of reasons. “Our desktops are now going on five years old and while they look nice, technology is leaving them behind,” said Superintendent Matt Scoggins. Additionally, the laptops will free up two classrooms as the technology labs are removed. Scoggins thinks they will also increase student access to information. “Instead of needing access to technology labs, students can immediately open up their Chromebook and access educational resources,” he said.
Chromebooks were chosen for a variety of reasons including their ability to work quickly, lack of malware issues and cheaper price in relation to a PC, IPad or other laptops.
“The collaboration/synergy across Rangely and Meeker as well as Northwestern Colorado School District (nearly every single one of them) and across the state of Colorado K12 and beyond is much greater,” Scoggins said. He also added that the testing programs used in the district (MAPS and Pearson State Testing) support the Chrome operating system as their top compatibility. “The Chrome Admin Console combined with the Lightspeed cloud content filter will allow Chromebooks to be safe for kids both at school and any other environment such as a home or library or even while traveling,” he said. Scoggins also highlighted that Google Apps for Education and Google Classroom are directly and fully integrated. Students received their Chromebooks late last month and draft policy on use is still under review.
In addition to the Chromebooks the district purchased three interactive Smart TV’s with the grant funds.
By JEN HILL | [email protected]
