With the rollout of the new school devices came a parade of technical problems. The biggest problem that students and teachers are facing is the unreliability of the school’s WIFI. As devices were being distributed, those who had them seemed to have little to no problems. If students or teachers have a problem, often it is solved by simply restarting the device. 

Soon after everybody had been given their device, the school was hit with a problem that wouldn’t be solved by restarting the computers. Only a couple days after devices were given out, the school’s WIFI went down due to the overflow of students trying to get onto the internet – a problem that wasn’t thought out ahead of time. This rendered devices useless and this was just the beginning. 

Today, teachers and students still struggle to keep a stable connection to the WIFI. Junior Kira Kemp stated, “Sometimes the WIFI will turn off and on again.” With such inconsistency, it’s hard to know if we can rely on these devices to get our work done. This is a complication that isn’t solved easily and doesn’t look like it is going away anytime soon. 

The random nature of when and where the WIFI will work is causing complications in classrooms. Junior Kun Feng said, “In my math class it once took twelve times to connect to the WIFI and in that class, you need the internet for the online textbook.”  

Teachers are now relying on the devices for lesson plans and activities, so students often need access to Schoology, our school’s grading outlet and/or Office 365. In some cases, students are unable to complete their assignments because they rely on the WIFI to be working properly. Junior Saphal Bhandari said, “In English class I can’t go online to the dictionary or to BCPS one to access resources for essay pre-writing.” The inconsistency of the WIFI is a big problem because students can’t complete work, which is not their fault.  

Although now the WIFI problem isn’t as prominent as it was at the start of the year, it still affects people more than you think. 

This raises the following question:  Why weren’t these issues thought about beforehand and when will it be fixed?  

Should we start relying on these devices or should we wait until the problems are fixed? In some ways, the devices are very useful and are good for communication with teachers. However helpful they might be, it doesn’t cover up the fact that sometimes you can’t even use these features since the WIFI won’t connect. 

For now, all we can do is sit back and hope that the problem will be addressed as soon as possible. The likelihood that this will ever be completely solved is very slim but there must be a better solution then just restarting your computer and hoping it helps.