The end of textbooks
 

One school in Arizona has taken a fairly drastic step in using technology to help its students. Empire High School, just outside of Tucson, is issuing Apple iBook laptops to all of its students. What is unique about that, you may ask? Well, nothing is overly unique about issuing laptops to students, as over 1000 districts around the U.S. issue laptops to their students each year.

What is unique is that the school also eliminated all textbooks. Students now carry only their laptop in their backpack and connect wirelessly to the school’s network to view digital versions of books and other materials for each class. Of course, you may be thinking that the students would take advantage of the technology to do nothing but instant message their friends, send e-mail, and play games throughout the school day. But, central filtering software on the network keep their laptops focused on school and less on “distractions.”

One interesting observation from the faculty is that while the students were great at using e-mail and playing games on their laptops, their overall skills in using applications such as Microsoft Word and the Internet for more than a basic search were somewhat limited. So, in addition to teaching normal subject matter such as social studies and math, they also had to teach some basic computer skills. Students seem to be embracing the new “bookless” school as there is already a waiting list to enroll and many students love the fact that they can complete and turn in all of their homework online.

And teachers love it as well because all homework is automatically checked for plagiarism against online sources and also checked against other student’s work. “If you copy from your buddy, it’s going to get caught,” said one teacher at the school.

So, are all books truly an endangered species at the school? Not quite as there still is a real library with real books and teachers still assign outside reading. So, unless the students have a large pet at home with an iron stomach, it would seem that the only item on the endangered list at the school is the classic phrase, “The dog ate my homework.”

Re: The end of textbooks
 

The excuses would just switch to:
~ My hard drive crashed
~I got a virus
~I'm locked up

I should go into the optometry business because there is going to be a lot of students needing glasses or suffering from eye strain. That's a lot of time spent in front of a computer screen.

Re: Re: The end of textbooks
 

I agree! I also hate reading anything online at length. It just gets so hard to scroll and concentrate on where I am on the piece. I like being able to highlight and make notes in the margin of my textbooks. The ibooks are cool, but I'm just a traditionalist, i like actual books (not the cost of them though!). How many kids are going to break their laptop?

Re: Re: The end of textbooks
 

Now there is gonna be a lot of student getting Carpel Tunnel Syndrome from all the typing.

A laptop program can be great. My high school has had it since the 1999-2000 school year (or was it 2000-2001??). However, students are more likely to "tune out" of class by MSN-ing or surfing the net than in pen/paper classrooms.

I also heard that a girl was suspended for MSN-ing in class.

Edited for sense

I think that from just a financial standpoint, this has the potential to be either a very good, or bad thing. As a business major, my textbooks usually cost about $600/semester. If an iBook were cheaper than that, it would help out students who were on financial aid or had financial hardships and couldn't have afforded to buy textbooks. On the other hand, my boyfriend goes to an engineering school, and as part of the school's contract with IBM, all of it's students are required to lease a Thinkpad from the school at the rate of $500/semester. This comes out to $4,000 for a 4 year period. I used to have a Thinkpad and it was the shittiest computer ever. It kept on breaking and crashing until it broke to the point that when you pressed the power button, nothing happened. He has the same problem, so basically he's paying $4,000 for a laptop that doesn't work and he keeps on having to fix.

Wow! That would frustrate me to no end. I can't stand windows as an operating system, and to pay $4,000 for it?!

I also agree with the fact that it will mess up the children's eyes sooner than necessary. I needed glasses after I worked my first full-time summer job (it was a computer job), and my optomotrist said that a lot of it was probably due to the huge amount of time I spent on the computer.

The school tells them that after they graduate they can buy the laptop from the school for $1, but after you've already spent $4,000 on leasing the thing, might as well just pay the extra dollar and keep it.

That is gross. Who wants to read stuff on a screen all day? I mean, OTHER THAN GC, of course.

I'm old school when studying -- I like to curl up with a book and a highlighter.