It's looking like DD's kindergarten will be online at least three days a week and maybe entirely. We have work laptops, but can't let her work on those, so we'll need to get her a computer or tablet. Our school will not provide them.
For those of you that already did some remote schooling in the spring, do you recommend a laptop or a tablet? Specific brands/features/whatever?
grape / 75 posts
We got a kids kindle fire for our kindergartener last spring, which I would NOT recommend for remote learning. The screen is super small, there is no memory, and the child restrictions aren't quite what I would like.
kiwi / 702 posts
@Dahlia: Did the school recommend anything? I imagine you would want something compatible with the curriculum they are delivering. Our public school system issues chromebooks since everything is accessible via the cloud. They're small and cheap which is great for little kids.
pear / 1599 posts
We used iPads (mini and big) and had no issues. That was for VPK and 1st grade. I just signed them up for K and 2nd grade virtual school and ours now specially says no chrombooks or tablets, they aren’t compatible with all the curriculum. So I am gonna wait till we start. We have a big Apple desktop if needed. But it also says each kid need their own device since class times can be at the same time. I know the super cheap chrombooks were hard to come by last month not sure now
ETA. The website for school gave all the info needed In a device.
coconut / 8079 posts
@Dahlia: we got DS a chromebook with a touchscreen so I feel like he will have some of the aspects of a tablet while still getting to learn to use a laptop. He’s going into first grade.
clementine / 935 posts
@Mrs. Pajamas: They haven't said anything yet. They have no idea what they're doing.
pomegranate / 3595 posts
We will have a 3rd grader and kindergartener. Our school uses google classroom as their platform. We used an iPad in the spring for the then-2nd grader and it was fine. The school offered chrome books but not 1-1.
For this year we went ahead and purchased a chrome book for the 3rd grader, with a touchscreen, and will plan to use the iPad for kinder. Fingers crossed this works out! The learning curve was pretty fast with google classroom last time so hopefully that is true this time around.
nectarine / 2797 posts
I would imagine it somewhat depends on what platform your school will use. Ours used seesaw for K-2 and that worked very well with iPad/iPencil. Older kids use google classroom and school is issuing 1:1 chrome books for them this year.
grapefruit / 4584 posts
Our school district (in NJ) still says we're starting live, 5x per week, 4 hrs per day with all kids in class and 1.5 hours of remote learning once kids are home. DH and I really doubt that's actually going to happen (or won't last long if it does), so we are preparing for another year of virtual/distance learning.
Our school district is 1:1 for grades 2-12; 2-5 get Chromebooks and 6-12 get iPads. The Chromebook DD had last year was underwhelming (basically no memory, it would stall on Zoom if she had other tabs open), so we just upgraded her (as a rising third grader) and her first grade sister to Acer Spin Chromebooks w/ touch screens, and will let the PreK3 sister use the school-issued Chromebook if needed. It was an investment, but we'll heavily monitor the use of the computers and hope that these will last them through elementary school, whereas we'd expect some of the cheaper Chromebooks not to last much beyond a year or two or have issues with speed/accessibility to the programs they need for school.
persimmon / 1390 posts
We used a school-issued Chromebook and it was much easier than a laptop because of the touchscreen. While we will get another one from the district to use this year for remote learning, we’ll probably buy one the following year as our kids start to need a computer for school projects.
persimmon / 1023 posts
We also did a chrome book for SK virtual learning this spring with the touchscreen and we bought a mini mouse. My 5yo figured out the mouse super easily and it’s been great! He prefers it to the touchscreen.
coconut / 8472 posts
@pinkb: We are too, we just moved to the Tampa area in the spring and continued distance learning with our original school. Last year our MA school used google classroom which wasn't great on an ipad so we were considering getting DS a chromebook for 1st grade. But the system here is different, apparently our district is going to use Canvas. Is that what your district (or virtual school) is using?
pear / 1599 posts
@ShootingStar: so to finish out last year I’m not sure what they used. It was Iready and a bunch of other links and websites and they all worked fine on the iPad. It was crazy, that was Sarasota county. We moved to Flagler county now but chose Florida virtual school flex for now, not the county offered program. I believe it runs on the blackboard program. I would think a chrome book would be a good choice. I went back and re read why they say. I iPad or chrombook here and it says there can be issues with java and flash.
pear / 1565 posts
We used our own laptop this past spring for kindergarten; now going into first grade she will have a chromebook from school
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