The Journey of 100 Chromebooks–Empowering Students Through Technology

They say that “A journey of a hundred Chromebooks begins with a single creative solution.” OK, no one has actually said that, but it does describe a recent occurrence at UMass Boston. It came in the form of 100 Chromebook laptops which had been purchased by IT for use at an upcoming New Student Orientation event. However, when COVID-19 struck and campus remained locked down much longer than expected, student orientation was instead held remotely, and the Chromebooks were at risk of sitting unneeded and unused.

Yet this seeming setback presented an opportunity for a creative solution through other interoffice partnerships on-campus. Mike Lyons, Assistant Vice Chancellor of Client Services, explained that his team quickly realized that Chromebooks could be used in many different ways to meet the needs of students at UMass Boston while also being less expensive than other options.

Through the work of some creative individuals, alternate use cases were found for the Chromebooks to be shared with different offices. Twenty-five units were provided to University Health Services, who are using them for COVID-19 testing stations around campus. Twenty were provided to the Campus Center and 25 more went to the Library, to update each of their student laptop loaner programs. Finally, 30 units were held in reserve for the following year’s student orientation, where the Chromebooks were rolled out in socially distanced locations for students to complete orientation exercises. IT has partnered with the library in the recent past to share a tracking system for their semester-long technology loaner program to staff (read more about Get IT on page 9). The cross-departmental partnership is not new though, and the dispersion of Chromebooks to different departments led to an expansion of the loaner program.

Mary Moser, UMass Boston’s Advancement and Engagement Librarian, explained how the library was able to upgrade their student laptop loaner program with the Chromebooks. Originally, students were only permitted to check out a laptop for an hour at a time, but now they will be able to check them out for 24 hours for use on campus, and even take them home to do schoolwork off campus. “We’re excited to be able to begin loaning them for the Fall!” said Moser.

“It was a complete success. The collaboration between our two areas provided vital services to students and student success.”

Peter Bonitatibus, Director of Student Affairs Technology Services (SATS)

Peter Bonitatibus, Director of Student Affairs Technology Services (SATS), acted as an ally to IT by getting yet more departments to adopt the usage of Chromebooks. “The SATS Office needed to find a portable solution to provide remote access to key Student Affairs cloud functions.” So, Bonitatibus obtained a test device from Lyons and found the Chromebooks could meet that need. They also could connect and function as a remote mobile device for New Students and Family Programs orientations and connect to two key University Health Services cloud applications. Bonitatibus was excited to report that, “It was a complete success. The collaboration between our two areas provided vital services to students and student success.”

We’ll end this story with another relevant quote (this time a real one) from Lao Tzu, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them—that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”