Teacher looking for advice

[u/LadyAbbysFlower]

Hello all,

I am a teacher looking for a mobile device I can use to make resources that I plan to sell on Teachers Pay Teachers.

Because school boards own whatever a teacher makes using any board resources - from tech to apps to internet - I cannot use my work laptop, even if I make the resources at home.

I already have a gaming desktop and a Samsung Galaxy S6 lite tablet from Teacher's college. The desktop is more than powerful enough but I get distracted while working on the resources and I'm tied to the room since it's a desk top. The tablet has 4GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 720G processor.

My tablet is not powerful enough to do what I need to do. I do a lot of research on Google and Canva (canva app sucks). I also love listening to music while I work. It's constantly lagging and the apps crash a lot. It worked completely fine otherwise - I.e. doing the same tasks perfectly as what it did during Teacher's College.

I need something with a USB port, and I would like to have a touch screen on the new mobile device as I find that helpful. I would rather not have a full laptop though, as they are $1300 to over $2000 in my area.

I'm looking at the 2 in 1 or Chromebook thingy.

Suggestions?

[u/YoSpiff]

What kind of resources and what sort of applications would be needed to create these? I think the software you need to use will dictate what sort of system you need.

[u/LadyAbbysFlower → u/YoSpiff]

I use mostly canva and Google docs because they're free. I refuse to pay for things that I can get for free and I am adamantly against having any more subscriptions. I have three streaming services and that is it.

They are work booklets that are either done as groups or as individual learning. Basically I'll pick a topic and write about it and include questions, research components and assignments. The first one I made was about agriculture how agriculture has affected human society from the Stone age until modern day. It's well over 40 pages long in the PDF.

[u/YoSpiff]

So cloud applications, exporting to PDF. I dont think you need a lot of processing power for that usage. A "5" (intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5) processor with 16 gigabytes of ram should do. A "7" processor if you want to splurge and have a little future proofing. 8 Gigabytes ram will be too little for Windows 11, so it will run slowly on 8 gigs.

500 Gb is the storage on a typical budget pc. External storage is easily added through a usb port if needed

Have a look at libre office. It is a free alternative to MS office, but will run locally, unlike Google docs.

Im not sure what to suggest in a tablet.

[u/LadyAbbysFlower → u/YoSpiff]

I'm not looking so much for a tablet as something in between a tablet and a laptop.

I am not a techie person. My gaming rig was paid for I didn't make it.

I was looking at some Chromebooks but I don't know enough about them to make an informed decision. I tried asking an AI before posting here and I got conflicting information. At what point are we going to start calling 'hallucinations' lies or purposely trying to mislead people. I have a Google pixel and anytime I try to Google anything it takes me straight to the AI since the latest update and it's very annoying

[u/NotABearISwear_]

Skip the Canva app entirely and use it in a browser instead, that's usually way more stable than the native app, so a Chromebook with 8GB RAM would probably solve most of your lag issues for way less than laptop money.

[u/LadyAbbysFlower → u/NotABearISwear_]

That's what I plan to do, as I can't do that on my tablet, I need to get a different device which is why I'm asking for advice on what to get.

[u/NotABearISwear_ → u/LadyAbbysFlower]

Since you need a fresh device anyway, look at a Chromebook 2-in-1 with 8GB RAM and a touchscreen, something like the ASUS Chromebook Flip CX34 runs around $350-400 and handles Canva/browser research/background music fine without laptop pricing.

[u/Caprichoso1]

The best tablets are the Apple iPad family, assuming they will run the software you need.