I have often considered myself privileged to go to Westside. Sure, I’ve never gone to any other high school, but despite its flaws (which we will save for future opinions on Wired or in the Lance) it seems to be one of the better high schools in the country. Along with the excellent teachers, modular scheduling and the parents who support the school by taking charge of various things in the community, something that sets Westside apart (and ahead) of many high schools in the United States is its technology.

Westside has been a one-to-one high school since 2001, and to set it even further apart from other districts, this year the program was extended all the way to kindergarten students.

But the point of this column isn’t how good Westside is in my mind. The point is this: after picking up my brand new MacBook Air yesterday, I took to Twitter expecting only positivity about the new laptops. While there were a lot of positive comments, to my surprise, I found just as many negative comments.

The top two complaints were screen size of the 11-inch Airs and the new login information. I’ll give those who were disappointed by the new login information this: I certainly was bummed about not having the same five number and five letter information because it had become a part of my high school experience. But, to be honest, the login information change did not deserve the energy used to make a tweet.

Ultimately, my complaint is with the negativity about our new laptops.

Along with tweets complaining about the screen size, I’ve also heard a number of students say things like “I would be happy if we had the same screen size as the teachers.”

This attitude is shortsighted. When looking at the student laptop situation, Westsiders need to put things into perspective.

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First of all, students in the Westside district are lucky to even have access to the technology we do. District 66 is the only district in Omaha to have a one-to-one program for K-12.

Now, for students who have become used to this privilege, the reality of the situation is that complaining about screen size without thinking of the advantages such a machine gives is unfair. With the 11-inch Airs, the school listened to student complaints of backpacks being heavy and computers being slow, and addressed the issues in a reasonable, cost-effective way. As District Technology Integrationist Matt Lee put it after the release of the plan (in April of last year) to get the Airs, it was a good compromise.

“When we talked to some students and kind of focused it a little bit, people were complaining about their backpacks being really heavy [and] about their computers being slow, and we think the 11-inch Air is a good compromise,” Lee said. “It’s got a solid state drive, so it’s got a lot of speed. It’s smaller. It’s lighter. But it still has a full-size keyboard on it and it still has all the capabilities.” 

Instead of complaining about the screen sizes being slightly smaller than what we had last year, it makes more sense to applaud our district for hearing student concerns and making an overall positive change. The new computers are under half the weight of the old computers, and instead of the plastic casings we now have a much more durable metal casing.

In an ideal world, our district would be able to buy 13 or 15-inch MacBook Airs to combine the weight advantage with a big screen. But, in our world, cost is important. There are budget constraints, and by going with 11-inch Airs for students, the district was able to add iPads to the lower grades without increasing the yearly expenditure on technology.

It would be wonderful to have the same 13-inch screens as the teachers, but ultimately sacrifices have to be made, and when the sacrifice is two inches on a $900 computer, I don’t see cause for complaints.