Slow Dynabooks slow down students
CVHS switched from Chromebooks to Dynabooks two years ago, hoping to provide the best technology for our students. Are the new Dynabooks really an upgrade? Since switching from Chromebooks, students and staff say the devices are frustratingly slow, raising questions about whether the change was worth it.
“Dynabooks are not up to par with our current school standards. They are painfully slow, which causes many kids to be left behind during lessons. Additionally, they also block random academic websites. For example, I was researching for a project during one of my classes, and my Dynabook decided to block Google,” said junior Sophia Li.
Students are not the only ones noticing issues. Teachers have also reported that the Dynabooks’ slow performance has created delays in lessons. Some students have had to resort to using their cell phones to keep up, even when there is a new district-wide policy for phones in classrooms.
“Technology is an essential resource for language acquisition. I use a variety of websites that support my students’ understanding of the vocabulary and grammatical concepts learned in class,” said Spanish teacher Dulce Christensen. “Not having a working computer (that can load the websites in a timely manner) severely impacts their performance and can lead to low assessment grades as they are unable to practice during class or even at home.”
The Information Technology (IT) Department has acknowledged technical problems, according to district guidance, because the laptops sat unused for over a year before being distributed. Many Dynabooks have been backed up with software updates requiring large-scale Windows, Chrome, and security updates that cannot run in the background without slowing down performance.
To address this issue, IT has adjusted the power and battery settings so devices can complete updates while being unattended. The department recommends students leave their laptops plugged in and connected to Wi-Fi for extended periods of time to allow them to complete the necessary updates.
“Our Technology Department is continuously working to improve the user experience. We are implementing changes to the device’s software configuration to help manage and expedite the initial update process, ensuring that students can get up and running more quickly,” said Director of Technology Greg Ko.
“We are confident that providing students at CVHS with Windows OS devices will enhance their exposure to a more authentic technological environment, reflecting the demands of college, professional careers, and the real world,” CVUSD Technology said in a statement at the first distribution.
For now, students and staff are left waiting to see if these Dynabooks eventually live up to expectations.
I think it’s really messed up that the Dynabooks were issued to so many students, including students who had working Chromebooks, but were promised a better alternative. They are constantly causing problems for people who need their school-issued device for testing, Trojan time device checks, or just everyday use.
I agree, and I feel like the software also make it a lot worse. At least for me it will show a loading screen that isn’t part of the website, and sometimes it doesn’t disappear. When i’m not using chrome on my school account, I can go in inspect element and hide this screen. But when I am in my school account I can’t. You also can’t do stuff like use a locked google form, so it definitely feels like a downgrade.
The Dynabooks take a long time to load and when I want to load a website it takes a while just for one thing. I personally prefer to have Chromebooks back as it was faster and I feel it is better than Dynabooks.
I wish they let us have our old chromebooks. I’ve wasted so much time waiting for my tabs to load and dynabook to power on. I don’t really have a lot of free time, so every second matters to me. It’s depressing knowing that a lot of control over my schedule has being taken away due to a forced, school-issued downgrade. They say it gives us a more ” authentic technological environment” but something more than online freedom (which they never gave a lot of in the first place) is being stolen with this new change, and it’s my patience.
I hope the problem with the dynabooks gets fixed. Having to wait 5 mins just for my computer to turn on takes away the class time I have to work on assignments. It’s increased my homework and I can’t do anything about it.
I think it is a problem that the school issued dynabooks are so slow. It is super inefficient for class and doesn’t let students get a lot, if any work done. The loading itself is very slow and it takes a long time to even turn the dynabook on. Compared to previous chromebooks, dynabooks lack in many functions.
I completely agree with this article; the Dynabooks are too slow for efficient and effective learning and they have been a disaster to work with. I recommend that people use their personal device that actually work and don’t hold students back from their learning potential. I don’t understand why out of all the devices they could’ve given the students, it’d be an extremely slow device that’s slower than a grandma; even that would be able to handle a website faster. I feel like IT should reconsider their decision of distributing these devices to future students… My own Dynabook took a whole night and half a day to update, and when I woke up, it was only 60% done with its updates. Isn’t that absurd?
I agree with this article and that the Dynabooks are an issue, I personally experience this a lot as a student. But the two solutions I see both have major issues tied to them. If the school tries to perpetually pump out updates this would not be time efficient, but very cost efficient. On the other hand issuing out new devices that operate on Windows but still function properly could be very time efficient and solve the problem in a month or two but would cost a lot of money and contain extra money loss with the investment in the Dynabooks.
The Dynabooks are running very slow for everyone I know who has one. Sometimes they don’t turn on, and you have to manually restart them. I’ve been having the same problems. Before, when I had the Chromebooks, they weren’t super fast, but still a lot better than these Dynabooks. The tabs take very long to load, and sites get randomly blocked. I was doing a project in one of my classes, and it just blocked google for no reason. I really hope the school gets better wifi, or we just switch back to the Chromebooks.
Yes please address this issue with the dynabooks, it should not be an issue for a school Chromebook to not be able to even access a simple quiz/test. It’s also annoying how all Chromebook users have to give their Chromebook for the dynabook users to borrow.
At some point it is no longer the updates being the issue but the actual dynabooks themselves and the programs installed. There are requirements to functionally run windows 11 and the dynabooks have the bare minimum in some aspects (4gb ram and 2 cpu cores) which will cause sub-par performance. Then there is the programs, in Task Manager on the dynabooks other programs like the security take up a decent portion of the already limited performance, and it is these programs that are blocking academic sites. I want the chromebooks back, those things did function at times.
The Dynabooks are a serious problem; they slow individuals down, which slows the rest of the classroom down. And the worst part was that the district was requiring some people to get them, or at least strongly recommending it. My mom forced me to get one, and it’s so much worse than my other Chromebooks, so now I have to bring my MacBook to school.
I totally agree with you, I have a Dynabook and I think it can impede my ability to learn because I will not be able to get access to assignments quickly or things will just load very slow. Great idea bringing up this problem.
The Dynabooks being slow is hindering students from getting their work done in class. The Dynabooks don’t even turn on half the time, and the other half, they don’t connect to the wifi. The wifi itself isn’t that good either, since it only connects to your laptop when it feels like it. At this point, it’s faster to wait until you get home to do your work, as you can use your personal computer at home or bring it to school. The school should either buy better laptops for students or get better wifi, or both if they can afford it.
The dynabooks running slow and not working isn’t just the only problem though. last school year, the dynabooks ran almost perfectly, and it seems like over this past summer is when they started to not work at all.