Chromebooks for Education

In my final year teaching high school English, we were preparing to start using Google Chromebooks with students the following school year. We attended training on the use of the tools available within Google's suite for educational purposes, and many students and teachers were excited. Since I wasn't there to see the Chromebooks implement, I've wondered since how well the implementation went for students and teachers.

There were a few huge benefits to adopting the Chromebooks. The district hoped that we could save on purchasing physical textbooks. Teachers would no longer have to haul around books for students to read and students wouldn't be bombarded with numerous text to carry. Without these heavy books to carry, teachers hoped more students would bring their Chromebooks to and from school, as many were reluctant to track and carry several books at once. There is also the benefit of more recent updates to text materials, rather than waiting for 5-10 year adoptions to take place.

The district also saw it as beneficial to adopt the Chromebooks as the state of Florida's high stakes testing had all moved online. School administrators reasoned that students would just be able to use their Chromebooks.

If any of you reading this works in a district that has adopted Chromebooks or other laptops, what has been the overall experience of them? Has the experience made the technology worth its cost?