For most students at Falls Church High School, and students in general, coming back to school in the fall is nothing to be excited about. It means having to be up early Monday through Friday, having responsibilities to tend to, and an onslaught of schoolwork and homework, a vast difference from the prior two plus months of laziness.

What it also entails is almost 10 months of boring, standard schoolwork…right? Well, that statement right there might not be the case this year. At the beginning of the 2017-18 school year, every student at Falls Church High School was given a nice surprise. Each student was given their own HP Probook 11 G2 laptop, which came with the laptop itself, a charger, and a carrying case. For many students this is a welcome addition to their individual learning. No longer will entire classes be filled with lackluster writing assignments, they will now be primarily tech centric and more intuitive than before with the introduction of these new laptops.

Almost every class in Falls Church this year will implement the use of these new laptops in some way.  Whether it be to turn in an assignment, take a quiz, or to work on a project, these computers are now a vital part of learning at Falls Church, and students have the ability to further their learning at home. It makes life in class a lot easier when you
can just take out your laptop to complete an assignment.

In addition, this opportunity provides students at FCHS who might not have the financial backing to afford a computer or laptop, or might not just have one in general, to be able to have a source for completing research, school work, and other assignments, so this laptop is also very
beneficial to many students in that respect.

Falls Church students were eager to share their opinions on their new laptops.

  Jose Sigaran (10) states that “the integration of computers into the learning this year has made it easier to stay on task, and to stay up to date with assignments.”

In addition, Charlie Jacoby (10) states, “I think that they are a very useful tool that speeds up the learning process.”

Jerry Achtermann (10) states, “I think that having a laptop is an improvement rather than having teachers just bring in the laptop carts every day. It’s a lot more convenient and it makes it much easier to do assignments.”

This is something that is a vast improvement from the computer carts of the past. These carts were always very clunky and not always readily available for teachers and students to have, so now with the introduction of these new laptops, learning can now be conducted more quickly and much more simply.