The brown UPS box lay waiting for me on the porch, and I could hardly maintain the discipline to put the car in park before rushing to rip it open. My Samsung Series 5 Chromebook had arrived.
The Series 5 is the first generation commercial device, running on a 1.66Ghz dual core Atom processsor and 2GB of Ram. The more powerful third gen Series 5 550 boasts a 1.3GHz dual core Celeron and 4GB RAM, which supposedly improved multimedia performance. The Series 5 is what we will be using in the classroom this year, though, so that is what I will be testing.
So back to the box. My first thought was of how tiny the machine seemed. I knew to expect a 3 lb. device with a 12" screen, but I'm the guy you see walking around with a 17" monster of a laptop in a massive briefcase on wheels. So it was still a big adjustment for me to pick up a laptop that seemed closer to my beloved Droid X2 in size. The chromebook is definitely compact, and I know my tweenage girls will instantly fall in love with its "cuteness." The keywords, "cute laptop cases" and ""sequined laptop skins" will probably spike at Google Analytics on the first day of school.
The first boot lived up to the 8 second hype. Eight "Mississippis" to be exact. Of course, testing out the 6-8 hour battery promise would have to wait another day since it did not come pre-charged. The wifi found my network, and then creating my user login was as simple as logging into my Google account. Actually, it was the same exact thing, which is the whole idea of the chromebook. I should have known to expect the auto-sync, but it was still neat to see all of my extensions and saved tabs just pop up.
So now I've logged into a chromebook, and I've also managed a fleet of Google Apps for Education accounts throughout the previous school year. The next exciting piece of the puzzle will be putting the two together to have ultimate totalitarian control over how my students can and cannot use the devices.
I had been warned that the stripped-down keyboard might be a bit of an adjustment. It was, but not too bad. A well-organized "tips" app came pre-installed for quick "how do I...?" answers. I had to pay a visit when I couldn't figure out how to turn off the caps lock (or how I got it on in the first place). In case you were wondering, it's Shift + Search button (magnifying glass). I didn't like the touchpad very much until I learned I could change it to "tap to click" in the settings. Now its multi-touch functionality is growing on me. Basically, the whole touchpad is a button (no bottom buttons or scroll zone). Left click is one click (or tap iff you wish, right click is a two-fingered click, scroll is a two-fingered swipe, and drag is a press and swipe (this last action takes the most getting used to).
One little thing that I really appreciated came to light when I got tired of experimenting with the touchpad and decided to plug in a wireless mouse. I slid the receiver into the USB port, and the mouse just worked. I know it's a tiny thing, but you know what I'm talking about if you've also probably lost a year or so of life watching, "Windows is detecting new hardware...installing device drivers for new hardware...your device is installed and ready to use," or similar Mac messages. All of the external USB storage devices I had in the house reacted the same way. Finally, true "plug & play."
After spending a few more hours that seemed like minutes surfing, checking out my Google Drive, and adding various apps & extensions, I determined that it was way past my bedtime. So in the next installments, we'll review my torture test, printing, and then get into what educational resources we can and cannot use with the Chromebook.
So now I've logged into a chromebook, and I've also managed a fleet of Google Apps for Education accounts throughout the previous school year. The next exciting piece of the puzzle will be putting the two together to have ultimate totalitarian control over how my students can and cannot use the devices.
I had been warned that the stripped-down keyboard might be a bit of an adjustment. It was, but not too bad. A well-organized "tips" app came pre-installed for quick "how do I...?" answers. I had to pay a visit when I couldn't figure out how to turn off the caps lock (or how I got it on in the first place). In case you were wondering, it's Shift + Search button (magnifying glass). I didn't like the touchpad very much until I learned I could change it to "tap to click" in the settings. Now its multi-touch functionality is growing on me. Basically, the whole touchpad is a button (no bottom buttons or scroll zone). Left click is one click (or tap iff you wish, right click is a two-fingered click, scroll is a two-fingered swipe, and drag is a press and swipe (this last action takes the most getting used to).One little thing that I really appreciated came to light when I got tired of experimenting with the touchpad and decided to plug in a wireless mouse. I slid the receiver into the USB port, and the mouse just worked. I know it's a tiny thing, but you know what I'm talking about if you've also probably lost a year or so of life watching, "Windows is detecting new hardware...installing device drivers for new hardware...your device is installed and ready to use," or similar Mac messages. All of the external USB storage devices I had in the house reacted the same way. Finally, true "plug & play."
After spending a few more hours that seemed like minutes surfing, checking out my Google Drive, and adding various apps & extensions, I determined that it was way past my bedtime. So in the next installments, we'll review my torture test, printing, and then get into what educational resources we can and cannot use with the Chromebook.
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