It’s been over a year and a half since the class of 2014 have received the netbooks. The netbooks had first been introduced to Niles West as a mechanism to replace the boring textbooks and make classroom activities fun! So, where are they now?

As a student apart of the 2014 class, I’ve been kind of surprised. The netbooks seemed to have disappeared. Personally, I haven’t brought my netbook at all to school this year. Last year, we did use the netbooks a bit during class, but a lot of the teachers have grown to hate them. The Internet connection was never reliable nor were the netbooks themselves.

Other sophomores have noticed the decrease in use of the netbooks, too. In my opinion, I’d rather stick with textbooks, but I don’t have much of an opinion anymore, since the usage of netbooks during a regular sophomore class is rare. According to, freshman Katie Filan, there isn’t much usage of the netbook in her classes either.

“I use the netbook mostly in biology,” Filan said. “I don’t really use it in any other class, and biology is my only bad grade so you can tell the netbook’s distracting, I’d rather use paper.”

I have to admit, that I’ve had a love-hate relationship with these netbooks. But two things have definitely improved this year: the tech support and the WiFi. Last year, if we did any kind of online activity, the Internet was never trustworthy. The whole class could never connect to the Internet at the same time, which is why I think a lot of teachers held back last year on activities for the netbook.

“We’re at the point this year, where teachers are becoming more confident in doing Internet activities,” said Tim Furman, the student technology and applications support specialist. “Over winter break we increased the band width for better WiFi, which makes teachers more confident with the netbooks.”

As a freshman, my stance was that the netbooks were an unnecessary add to the curriculum and as a sophomore, well, I’m still at a hold with my stance. I have to say though, fixing the WiFi and increasing its abilities takes a lot of frustration off of the netbooks. If only teachers would start doing activities with the netbooks, maybe we get more use out of them.

Do you guys ever use them during class? What class do you get the most use out of the netbooks?