By Abigale Paterniti, Staff Writer
Apple Vision Pros have become very popular, as many people have been seen walking around in public fashioned with these futuristic lenses. However, beyond the internet, it does not seem that these virtual reality goggles have become popular in every part of town. Places like California, and San Francisco, have taken a quick speedy flight in growing popularity. On the contrary, the same is not said for rural Maryland, and even more specifically Columbia, MD. But, this could all change, with a crucial decision made by the Howard County Board of Education to replace school Chromebooks with Apple Vision Pros for all students and teachers.
This may come as an absolute shock to most, yet many will not be surprised to be shocked by another one of the board’s decisions. As it may seem, many programs, and teachers have recently suffered from major budget cuts around the county in order to relieve county debt. Many parents and students are not pleased. In order for the board to find some retribution, they have come to the decision to replace the generally dislikable chromebooks for what they hope will be a popular item among both students and teachers for its innovativeness, Apple Vision Pros.
Students have mixed opinions about the change. Sophomore Siana Kabaria notes, “It would be a cool experience to learn with the Apple Vision Pros, it would be so much more immersive than Chromebooks.” Similar to Siana’s opinion, Freshman Leyla Tarhan shares a similar and different take, “Everybody in the county has chromebooks and gotten used to them, I feel like it’s a bad idea for the county to change to Apple Vision Pros.”
When asked why, Leyla remarks, “With budget cuts, and everybody who is super valuable to the county, I feel like it’s not as important to buy nicer new technology, when we have technology that works very well instead of compromising jobs of teachers who people love.”
However, contrary to her own opinion, Leyla does see some positives to this drastic change for the county, “I feel like it could help with transferring documents easily, and that the teachers might prefer using an apple product versus chromebooks.” Both alike and different, Sophomore Helen Quill adds an important point, “The Apple Vision Pro goggles are really creepy since they are augmented reality because your seeing what’s in front of you but also your phone screen at the same time, and if people are walking around with that they are going to become clueless about what differs real reality from fake reality.”
All in all, it is seen that students believe there are both positives and negatives to this decision, and are equally intrigued and worried about what effect Apple Vision Pros could have on schools. Happy April Fools!