Chromebook Challenge: Week 7 Update

So I haven't posted an update in a couple of weeks because I haven't had anything new to report.  All I know is that the last 7 weeks have been some of the best in terms of technology frustration I have ever had.  Everything is so fast and smooth when I am on my Chromebook.  I have had to go to my computer once or twice and it is like trying to run a race while sinking in quicksand.  It is unbelievably slow.  I am spoiled with the speed and responsiveness of Chrome OS.

What I ended up doing the last week of school was hooking up the Chromebook into my 24 inch monitor, essentially turning my Chromebook into a Chromebox.  I had been using a mouse since the first week, but having everything on a 24 inch monitor is awesome.  All I needed was my little vga to hdmi cable and I was good to go.

We have to print out a bunch of paperwork at the end of the year and printing was no issue.  I had my laptop running and printed about 30 pages of reports without any problem.  I was even able to update my tutorial site, including a screencast all on the Chromebook.  I watch my colleague next to me as he is opening up Chrome on his Windows pc and it lags so bad.  On Chrome OS, click and go.  It truly is amazing the speed differences.

And ironically, today while I was helping set up a room for summer school, my laptop got stuck in an infinite boot loop.  Couldn't do anything.  No safe mode, no nothing.  So I had to take it to our tech people and they said they would reimage it.  Now, since I am on a Chromebook, all that this affects is printing.  But imagine if teachers had Chromebooks or Chromeboxes and something did happen, although I haven't seen an issue all year.  I could have gone up given them my Chromebook and given another and once I logged in, it would feel just like the one I had before.  Amazing.

So school is over now, but I have to say I will probably be using this set up for next year.  I don't see any valid reasons to keep running Windows at school.  I will still keep my laptop around because I will need it for printing, but other than that...good-bye Windows.  Chrome OS offers so much more than a Windows-based system can bring here at school.