WESTMINSTER-As a reading interventionist at a Vermont public middle school, I witness daily how technology shapes our students’ futures. We use our Google Chromebooks for statewide testing, diagnostic testing, even for daily instruction.
As a Vermont teacher I am expected to have all my work available through Google Classroom, to regularly check my Gmail, to use only Google tools in my job. Generally this helps Vermont schools move toward a more universal design, where students gain better access to school work regardless of their reading level.
Unfortunately, the Google spell check feature no longer works reliably on student Chromebooks. Rather than helping students fix their spelling, Google AI is constantly offering to rewrite the sentence or find links to related information. Google places so much emphasis on developing all the flashy AI features that they no longer care about perfecting simple, essential tools like spell check.
Google is aware of this issue but has decided today’s students don’t need reliable spell check.
For me, this issue is deeply personal. As a dyslexic person, spell check has been the crucial tool that allowed me to participate in the information economy. In my role as a reading teacher, I find it crucial to teach students how to integrate spell check into their writing process as an essential accommodation. By failing to fix this basic feature, we are depriving an entire generation of their potential for independence.
Vermont schools spend roughly $15 million a year on Google Chromebooks and their software licenses. Because of these massive investments, Vermont teachers and students are trapped in the Google environment with no viable alternatives.
Vermont must take a stand.
Our state should stop sending any money to Google until the company fixes the issues with spell check in the Chrome environment. I appreciate Vermont’s wish to embrace universal design, and so I appreciate the effort to get all Vermont students onto computers.
However, it seems like an incredible waste of time and money if we can’t even expect basic tools that actually work.
Ben Mitchell
Westminster
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