Printing in the Cloud

While my utopian ideal is an entirely paperless classroom, it is simply not a reality yet. Some hard copies, dreaded trips to the Xerox room, and laminate-ready signage will need to be produced. Of course, students may want to print things as well (probably at the last minute for other classes).

Despite two USB ports, printing with the Chromebook is not a simple plug & play procedure, since printer drivers currently cannot be installed for the Chrome OS. Nevertheless, the process is not as intimidating as some may think. You need to use Google CloudPrint, a remote printing service available prior to the release of the Chrome OS. The concept is simple. You install the CloudPrint app on another PC or Mac that is in some way connected to a printer (via hard line or network). CloudPrint talks to that computer from anywhere over the internet, and viola!, You can use the printers associated with the device. You can install CP on as many machines as you like for more printer choices. So I could theoretically print at home from school, or at school from home (beats printing something out at night then forgetting to take it out of the printer and bring it next morning). Here is my current selection of home printers (among the usual vestigial "print to file" nonsense):

Newer "CloudPrint-ready" network printers can also be purchased, which supposedly allows one to circumvent the computer & app middleman. I have no experience with one of these yet. However, I have had no difficulties with either network or usb printers at home yet. I am expecting new network printers at school this year as well, so we shall see in a few weeks how CP handles a more complicated network full of firewalls and filters.

Torture Test

Day 2, a cup of coffee, and a full charged Chromebook. After my online morning ritual of email, news, Facebook, and grad school, I figured the best way to put the device through the wringer was to hand it off to my 10 year-old son. I didn't need the thumb screws to convince him to take advantage of unlimited play time on a new computer.

Any worries about keyboard confusion or the tricky track pad vanished in the first 10 seconds. It was about as difficult an adjustment for that digital native as transferring a goldfish to a new tank. He spent the better part of the morning making his way through Y8 games, YouTube videos of magic tricks (his latest thing), and compiling his 1,000 item Christmas list from Amazon. I did have to explain to him why we could not load Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 on the Chromebook, which he took with the nonchalance of short attention-spanned youth.

= Joe Montana was AWESOME!

When the boy got bored (or I kicked him off - can't remember), I checked the battery status. The machine had been running for over two hours straight and the battery indicator was at 80% even. The estimated time remaining was somewhere around 2 hours, 45 minutes. Since then I have learned to ignore the time remaining indicator, as its algorithm must be based on the same formula used to determine NFL passer ratings or pre-2012 NCAA bowl game participants. At 50%, the battery might offer you two more hours or ten based on what you have been doing and what it assumes you will be doing. This is probably normal for laptops, but I just never really relied on battery power that much. In my classroom, however, battery life will be paramount.

I spent several more hours surfing the web and adding apps. Much of the time was spent testing out educational sites, online curriculum samples, and other miscellaneous online resources I use in class. That's a huge, ongoing task, so I'll save it for a comprehensive report in another entry. Around the 6 hour mark of straight usage (without shutting the lid or letting the computer sleep), battery life was at 33%. So three hours remaining is a comfortable prediction. I did close the lid for a few hours, coming back to periodically check mail, forums, social networks, and such. As the sun set, I decided to try and kill the battery once and for all. After watching approximately 90 minutes of a Netflix movie, I finally got the low battery warning at 5%. Pretty impressive. While batteries do degrade over time, I can sleep easy knowing that these machines will last throughout the school day for my students without needing a charge.

Out of the box

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.