And what do laptop change about that? This thread isn't even about reading books, it's about writing notes. How do you learn to write incorrectly from using a laptop in a classroom?
LOL, pretty much aladar, the laptop is pretty much the new pen and paper for many students and in what concerns to organizing these notes it's pretty much unbeatable. More, this also helps interaction between colleagues when sharing the notes.
Well, it depends. I am a teacher and I have dealt with the changing times. I think computers are great for testing. I notice my students are very interactive when they are doing assignments on the computer. However, I am just an old fashion 28 year old who prefer students to work out of their notebooks with pencils. Although students become engage on the computer, I have notice some of them losing focus on the assignment and tend to divert their attention elsewhere - often times to another site when my back is turn. So it's really 50/50 for me. Now, I only allow students on the computer for testing or during free period and they can only go on certain sites.
How old are your students May? I feel that the age of the students is very important when making the call of allowing them to use the computer or not. College students should be allowed IMO, why not, they are already adults.
Why are people so hell bent on holding kids back? When we were all kids, we heard the adults say various versions of the same complaint "you kids don't do ______ like we used to do.. that's the problem with the world today" yadda yadda yadda. If we always stayed behind the times like the current older generations want us to, we would never EVER progress. Fact. If you think your child will forget how to write or never learn it, that isn't a school's fault. That's totally on you. As parents we are the FIRST educators.. stop throwing them to the education conveyor belt and expect them to do your job for you. If you don't like how they do something, do it yourself. Technology is the now and most definitely the future.. if you want the children held back from that, you better be mighty powerful, because you'll owe them all jobs.
I think this has the potential of being a good thing if not abused. So far I have not heard of any confusion or mishaps regarding the use of laptops in schools and classrooms but I can definately think of a couple of reason why schools my want to rethink this. Now a days almost 99.9 percent of sexual adult pronographic pictures and video can be accessed with a simple google search and unwanted pictures of other people can be uploaded to the internet for everyone to see within seconds. With that said, this could result in a lot of confusion, privacy violations, pornographic material being distributed just by the click of a button.
Sure, the rapidness and convenience of being able to access notes on the computer without having to write them off the board or get them in handouts saves time and paper, but what about the traditional way of learning? This takes away from people having the chance to work on their hand printing skills and actually learn from the notes as you write it down. For those reasons, I see both advantages and disadvantages, though I'm more in favor of students writing the notes down. It's called school. Learning to do things the hard way than the easy way prepares students for life on the outside world.
Laptops in classrooms are a necessary thing. We'd want to be fully prepared and skilled to work on tasks that require computer use. Students should be able to use their laptops for writing reports, preparing homework assignments, and for communicating with the school via a secure network. They would need to be computer literate, and so should the teachers. We would not want our children to be taught skills that are of no use as soon as they graduate. They don't have to be the world's best in computer programming, but they would need to be able to use the tools to get them through school and at work later on. Other than that, I think school children should get laptops and WiFi access for free.
I agree that this is the best way to save paper and ink but I think laptop in the classroom is just over the top. I also think that the students could easily get distracted by using laptop as they can do anything and everything with it. I am not sure how exactly you can control the students while they have laptop in class.
Again akiii, it all depends on the age of the students. If they are under let's say 12, I agree that they will be really hard to control, but if they are over 16 I think they already have enough responsibility to deal with it.
I think it's a good thing. First of all, a lot of people nowadays can type faster than they can write. Also, the laptop eliminates the need for neater handwriting. Finally, we are being pushed into a technological age that requires such technology to advance in the sciences. Not only is it better, but it is also inevitable. All of the people who don't like it are usually pretty old, do not understand the technology, and really don't like the inevitable change that human society will start.
I think laptops are fantastic in the classroom, especially when you can see very easily what the teacher is presenting on their boards. Plus you can spend time actually listening to and comprehending what they are discussing rather than frantically trying to write it all down hoping you didn't miss something. Plus it's really easy for your teacher to share various materials with you. In addition, those materials can be actual audio and video. I understand it's very easy for kids to get distracted though and start playing around on the internet instead of paying attention to their instructors - but I am sure they can come up with a software solution that locks down their systems during class time, and restricts them to only access their learning materials. I've taken online exams that do this, for various certification courses. Plus, think of learning history class, where the students can actually watch and engage in various historical moments caught on film or on radio. Or think of access to online art galleries where students can zoom into classic works and see them in detail. Or consider language classes where students can hear how individual words are pronounced correctly, as well as listen to audio of people speaking in those languages to practice learning them themselves. You can still take notes with a computer, but I find it much faster to type than to hand write stuff. Plus I can tell you as a left handed person, it was really painful to write down tones of notes in notebooks designed for right handed people. The sides of my hands were often raw from rubbing against the metal binding rings, and they were covered with pencil dust.
Having computers in class can be helpful in different ways but I feel like when a student writes the notes then they tend to learn material better. When I was in college we was allowed to bring our own laptops but I chose not to because I learn better when I write notes by hand.
That can be the case as well, sometimes we can be faster handwriting than typing and in that case it doesn't make sense to use the laptop. On the other hand it's a time saver to have the notes immediately on the computer, so it will depend on the person.
As a college student, this isn't all that relevant to me, but I might as well throw in my 2 cents... Being computer literate is incredibly important for students today. However, I don't support phasing out paper out of today's classrooms. Computers are expensive, and while a student today really does need to have a computer at home to use (regardless if its a desktop or laptop), a student shouldn't have to bring a laptop to school. I also think a lot of school districts would have problems providing laptops for every single student.
I think it would be awesome to phase out paper.. we're killing our planet. Also, I wouldn't expect all children to bring a laptop to school, but certainly it would be an option for those who can afford it, to allow the school to save some money and provide for those who do need the help. There are also programs in place to put computers in classrooms, I believe. It will be a while yet before it can happen, but it can only be a good thing, considering we're not going backwards anytime soon.. technology is everything now.
I think on one hand this is a good thing because every child should know their way around and computer and saving paper is always a good thing. I also think that this is great because children will have the opportunity to use modern day technology as oppose to just writing with pens in paper. This can make learning a lot more fun and keep kids interested in learning and also getting more involved in their studies. There should still be some old fashion teaching methods thrown in there as well though, so we don't lose that part of teaching all together. All in all, this a great way to keep kids wanting to learn and study in school. I just hope that they are doing their assignments and not trying to get into other things on the computer that can be a distraction from their studies.
Having laptops at classrooms is a good thing, but I think it should not replace the traditional pen and paper altogether. Because if we do that, students would eventually forget how to write legibly. And we don't want that to happen. Also, I personally learn more whenever I have a notebook and I write down what is being discussed. This works for me and I think it works for other people as well.
This is a good point actually. When I use pen and paper, I remember the subject so much better. That said though, writing with our hands will only phase out if parents continue to leave learning up to the school. Like with cursive.. many schools are phasing that out and parents are ranting and raving about it when it's THEIR children lol. Who's stopping them from teaching their own children? Learning starts in the home and apparently stops for the parents at 4 or 3 or 2 or however young they stuff them in those buildings now. So if people want their children to know how to write with their hands, they are totally capable of that and if the child feels the need to know, they will teach themselves.. do we, as adults, just forget about those things which make us curious? Kids don't either. So I can see handwriting being great for a study tool and personal things, but technology makes things so much more quick and efficient in school and realistically, there isn't an absolute need for pen and paper. It's not like they're going anywhere.. it's not going to be outlawed lol..
True, when I was a student and had 3 months holidays, when I got back to school I could not write properly. I don't know if it's a real issue or not because it's very rare for me to hand-write these days, but even so I haven't forgotten how to do it.
