Schools have been making people write things down and write essays on lined paper and all that jazz for years and I want to put an end to it. If laptops and computers would be allowed in schools to be worked on, the productivity and grades would higher significantly. I say this because...

1. Students are usually faster typers and even if they are not they can still easily read everything.
2. Lined paper is easy torn or ruined, unlike computer data, usually.
3. Students could access classroom files such as word documents that a teacher is talking from and would not have to copy everything down.

All I am saying is even though pencil and paper is more traditional, students could be much, much more effective on computers and laptops. All this funding is put towards raising test scores, while it could be done to buy a laptop for every student. I mean, there are 100 some computers in the library, probably 200 in a school. Why can't the school just offer up getting some 400 mghertz systems and we can run from there.

I belive what you say about papers being torn (I speak from experience, papers in my binders generally don't live too long in there before being ripped out). But not every school can afford laptops, or the specialized software they would need to put on them. And I don't think Bush is about ready to give a couple of billion dollars toward adding computers to the classrooms of America.

Well I agree with this, and disagree.

For the most part, if stupid had laptops at there desk, they'd be tempted to go out and surf the web while the teacher is talking. Or even get on some chat programs. It's easy to get by filters so there isn't much stoping people, espessialy on a wireless network.

Though it would make the teachers life easier, not having to try and read the chicken scratch some kids produce. The only way a teacher wouldn't be able to read a paper if the student made the font to small, or didn't even print it!

Then again, most students don't know hwo to use a computer fluently, there will ofcourse be some issues, and maybe data loss on someones part.

Can you imagine the insurance costs of having that many laptops? At my school we have around 1,500 pupils, if each one had a laptop costing around £500 that would be a total of £750,000 just on laptops for students, when the majority of departments have trouble finding enough money for new textbooks every 10 years. Most of the people in my classes spend their time making documents look pretty, which takes them even longer on a PC as they are not all exactly computer literate. Also, some seem to think the best use of their time is playing Flash and JavaScript games during ICT lessons, so there would be some problems.

I wonder how much the schools would fine parents in their son/daughter lost theirs. For books it's around 50p but for laptops. I can imagine what some people would do the laptops of people whom they hate.

Anyway, carrying them round between lessons wouldn't be convenient. And imagine 1000 people trying to log on to the school network at one time, five times a day.

I find this a cool idea...now as most of you are saying...about the price it would cost...
think about it...simple purpose built lap-tops..just fast enough to cope with text writing programs...
0.2ghz machine would be needed ( LMFAO probably)..so basically just a machine for a text typing program..and thats it really..means other programs cannot be used..they do not even have the option to not have a diff program..you switch it on..enter password...then you get a word processor that appears ..and/or a folder of text files.
it would be cheap if you think about it..infact probably the price of a V-tech kid machine things or somthing .

I don't agree at all. I think that schools put too much of an emphasis on getting computers in schools already. Computers are just a distraction. If all students had computers, teachers would wind up spending most of the time teaching how to work and how to fix the computer, and trying to see who was goofing off instead of doing their work.

Plus, it would be way too easy to fudge your way through school. Think about it- your computer could do your math for you- it could fix your spelling mistakes. You might think, "Really though, when we get out of school we are just going to use a computer for everything anyway."

You need to know the basics in life, though. What if the power goes out? lol

There's something to be said for good penmanship as well.

i don't know what schools you people go to... but I don't see why your schools still require you to hand in reports that are hand written and on lined paper. Hand written reports... wow. All sudents use computers to do their projects and homework. The only time pen and paper are used is during class for note taking. And in university, even note taking is done on the computer.

I totally agree with this, in fact I am trying to get myself laptop privilages just for these reasons.

Only two problems:
1. What if the use of computers result in people being incapable to do work without them?
2. They would need to be constantly recharged - which becomes a problem when you consider there are 300+ students in most schools. It's not easy to charge 300 laptops at the same time...