by Nico Guzman | staff writer
Due to the growing amount of students at Johnson High School, there are too many students in classrooms for the amount of Google Chromebooks that a cart can hold, so NEISD decided to install wi-fi throughout every school in the district.
“It gives students and teachers now the ability to be more accessible for getting on the Internet, maybe utilizing some apps that teachers want to use, so obviously we have a lot of technology availability here with labs and carts, but not enough to cover everybody so this certainly takes care of that,” campus structural technologist Scott Mayer said.
The availability of wi-fi at school allows students to access the Internet with their own devices for school assignments.
“Sometimes I don’t get service in my classrooms so having school wi-fi allows me to use my phone for my assignments such as getting on Google Docs when there’s no computers in my classroom or doing research for a project,” junior Nicholas Calzada said.
Teachers no longer have to worry about not having enough Chromebooks or Ipads or even going to the library or computer lab so students can access the Internet and do projects or research for the class.
“It positively affects my teaching because whenever I ask students to google something real quick or especially vocabulary words, they can look it up quickly without burning through data, so more students are able to bring in their device and use it in class which is nice. They can use it a little more like if they’re researching on their own, it eliminates having to go to the library or computer labs to use those devices, they can look it up on their own devices that they bring to class, and if they don’t have a smartphone, we only need a few of Ipads or Chromebooks,” English teacher Julia Whitfield said.
Allowing students to access the Internet at school could also have negative effects.
“People will probably be playing games and getting on sites that they shouldn’t be getting on,” junior Eddy Ortiz said.
Having wi-fi could lead to phones being more of a distraction in class because how easy it is to access the internet now.
“I think wi-fi would be a distraction in the ways that phones are a distraction and now it’s easy to look at things, but I think a lot of social apps are blocked. I don’t notice a higher level of distraction,” Whitfield said.
Students no longer have to connect to the NEISD guest wi-fi to access the Internet for any school assignments.
“No one needs to be accessing the guest network, that is not built for the amount of students in the school, it was built for outside guest[s] who need quick access to the Internet,” Mayer said.
