This is kind of a rant as well as a question.
Do you think we should allow students to use electronic devices like pdas and laptops in high schools? Why or why not? If so, what sort, if any, restrictions would you place on it?
The reason I ask is because, in high school, I lugged around an old IBM thinkpad to do work on and take notes. Not only was it faster and easier to use than our clunky labs and workstations...it also made things easier for me. When it was time to study for exams or tests, I could perform searches on my notes for specific strings and text. History was, in particular, easier because I didn't have to troll through pages just to get the date of the spanish inquisition. I also know for a fact that our valedictorian wouldn't have gotten the scores he did because he couldn't refuse loaning his notes to other students to help themstudy when they asked, leaving him noteless until I started to offer to email my notes to people instead. In short, it was an excellent aide to me in school. Recently, however, the town passed a proposition that bans all forms of consumer electronics in the classroom, specifically, devices with computational power such as pdas, laptops, and even many kinds of advanced calculators. I spoke up at the last board of education meeting about this and did some private inquiry into it and was given a list of reasons, which I believe to be crock. Granted, I don't have the position or power to change the policy, but I did make sure they knew my opinion on it. The more sensible reasons, from the typed correspondence to me were:
- electronics disturb the natural progression of the class by allowing students a diversion from learning and conversing with their peers.
- electronics give an unfair advantage to certain students above their peers that are not as technologically equipped
- teachers are ill equipped and cannot be expected to be able to deter students from using said devices in a manner consistent with cheating
There were also several that made little sense to me like electronics have been a known influence to promote drug-related activities and whatnot.
I understand these points, but I have written back to them in counter that 1) if a student wishes to converse with their peers, there are much more efficient and cost effective ways of doing so. 2)If a student does not wish to focus on the learning materiel, the presence or absence of an electronic medium will do little to promote or deter them. 3)By denying the use of electronics to those who posses the ability to do so creates a deficiency for said student by restricting them from using all the resources available to them and limiting their ability to perform better(they already know my position that we should stop catering to those people who just don't want to learn). 4) It is reasonable to expect that access to electronic devices can be limited depending on the circumstances, such as in an exam.
Having said all that, I'm curious what the community here thinks.
Do you think we should allow students to use electronic devices like pdas and laptops in high schools? Why or why not? If so, what sort, if any, restrictions would you place on it?
The reason I ask is because, in high school, I lugged around an old IBM thinkpad to do work on and take notes. Not only was it faster and easier to use than our clunky labs and workstations...it also made things easier for me. When it was time to study for exams or tests, I could perform searches on my notes for specific strings and text. History was, in particular, easier because I didn't have to troll through pages just to get the date of the spanish inquisition. I also know for a fact that our valedictorian wouldn't have gotten the scores he did because he couldn't refuse loaning his notes to other students to help themstudy when they asked, leaving him noteless until I started to offer to email my notes to people instead. In short, it was an excellent aide to me in school. Recently, however, the town passed a proposition that bans all forms of consumer electronics in the classroom, specifically, devices with computational power such as pdas, laptops, and even many kinds of advanced calculators. I spoke up at the last board of education meeting about this and did some private inquiry into it and was given a list of reasons, which I believe to be crock. Granted, I don't have the position or power to change the policy, but I did make sure they knew my opinion on it. The more sensible reasons, from the typed correspondence to me were:
- electronics disturb the natural progression of the class by allowing students a diversion from learning and conversing with their peers.
- electronics give an unfair advantage to certain students above their peers that are not as technologically equipped
- teachers are ill equipped and cannot be expected to be able to deter students from using said devices in a manner consistent with cheating
There were also several that made little sense to me like electronics have been a known influence to promote drug-related activities and whatnot.
I understand these points, but I have written back to them in counter that 1) if a student wishes to converse with their peers, there are much more efficient and cost effective ways of doing so. 2)If a student does not wish to focus on the learning materiel, the presence or absence of an electronic medium will do little to promote or deter them. 3)By denying the use of electronics to those who posses the ability to do so creates a deficiency for said student by restricting them from using all the resources available to them and limiting their ability to perform better(they already know my position that we should stop catering to those people who just don't want to learn). 4) It is reasonable to expect that access to electronic devices can be limited depending on the circumstances, such as in an exam.
Having said all that, I'm curious what the community here thinks.
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