Laptops Required?

Chuck on October 26th, 2009

There is  a lot of talk around college campuses – from the administration side of things – about the possibility of requiring students to have a laptop or a Netbook.  Some of the arguments being thrown around for such a requirement are:

  • With good wifi on campus, students could do work just about anywhere, not just in dedicated labs.  This could save money on repairing library computers, managing the time spent on them (especially on community college campuses where the # of students attending is sky rocketing), and could open up square footage for classes currently designated for computer labs.
  • If they’re required they would then be covered by financial aid.  This then would give lower-income students a more even playing field with their more affluent peers.
  • It encourages “portable academic study” which these skills will obviously be more and more necessary moving forward.
  • All books could be purchased in soft-copy format, ultimately saving money for students – potentially a LOT of money.

Some of the questions being posed are:

  • Netbooks often don’t have enough memory.
  • What about students that only take one class?  Would they have to pay for a laptop (if they don’t have one) and pay more for it than they did the class?

But, for me, I’m wondering if students would pay attention in class.  My hunch is their Facebook profile would get much more traction than their Word doc or excel spreadsheet.  Aren’t cell phones a distraction enough?

Any thoughts on this?  Have you heard of this happening on campuses near you?  Is this a good thing?

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  4. churches that embrace college-age people
  5. Campus Sub-Cultures, Part: Four

Share Discuss (8)

stella at 1:44am October 27

How would you fill if your college had no half term

Brandon Smith at 3:06pm October 28

My name is Brandon and I am a college minister at Northwest Missouri State University, where the Rachel above said she went. (I don’t think we know each other…)

But yeah, each student is loaned a laptop. And I always hear about students surfing the web and spending a lot of time on Facebook during class. However, if laptops weren’t in the classroom, most students would find themselves distracted with cell phones and texting or any other number of things.