Should schools make students use pen and paper, or issue them with laptops?
91 replies, posted
Since 2009, highschool students in public schools all across Australia have been issued with netbooks for school use. They are loaded with useful software programs such as Microsoft Office and Adobe Creative Studio as well as many other programs. Many have praised these laptops because they allow students to access more resources on the go, and also creates the incentive to give the students skills in the operation of the software on the laptops. Many classes already make use of the laptops, some requiring the laptops. However on an educational level, are laptops really better compared to pen and paper?
I speak from personal experience, because I was in the first year to receive them, Year 9 back in 2009. Sure it has been useful to me at times, but I do find the laptops to be bad when considering actual education. Of course many people do work on them, but most of the time work is not actually done with them in class. People use to play games all the time, browse irrelevant forums and bypass the filters to go on to sites such as Facebook and Youtube. Everyone did this, I did myself simply because I could. Writing down things in class was easy, it was very quick to write what was on the board down into OneNote, and when done jump back into your game, or whatever video you were watching. I never actually payed attention to what I wrote down because I aimed to get it down as fast as possible to get back into the game I was playing, and I think it might of impacted my School Certificate (exams) in a negative way. But knowing that I at least tried to study from what I wrote down; many did not, and of course they were the ones who were like me and played games or watched videos alot.
The Department of Education and Training slowly rolled out fixes to resolve the "issues", banning exes from anything not already installed from running (even with run as admin turned on) and then prevented SWF files from opening (I think it was SWF). However people still found ways to play games (there was a trick of putting the exe in a certain folder in the Adobe folders, which made exes work) and people would use some TAFE (college kind of) logins to access blocked materials if the proxies were blocked. Monitoring of the laptops was upscaled I believe, and people using logins for TAFE accounts that weren't theres got in trouble. Still now, people get up to mischief. In fact last week I ran the risk of using a TAFE login that wasn't mine to watch things on Youtube and play happy wheels. Lots of others still do.
What's the point of these laptops if they are going to be used for the wrong purpose? I can't think of anyone in my year who doesn't do the kind of stuff I mentioned above. What do you think? Do you think the benefits of the extended access to resources and software programs outweighs the misuse of the laptops? Should pen and paper still be used instead of letting students type up work on the laptops?
I think restricting people like that is ridiculous, let people take their own responsibility.
If they want to play games instead of do the work they should, then they can. But of course you should be allowed to do more than just coursework and work on the laptop you got.
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[QUOTE=Badballer;32920166]Are you on facepunch during class right now antdawg?[/QUOTE]
Yeah of course I absolutely love staying at school till 8:30PM. And on Sundays too!
But I have been on Facepunch many times on my laptop. Best way to spend time through an Advanced English lesson, and ruin my chances of a good HSC next year!
[QUOTE=Badballer;32920166]Are you on facepunch during class right now antdawg?[/QUOTE]
On a sunday? What do you think
I'm at work on a Sunday on FP shhhhhh.
But yeh, providing laptops is always useful just for note taking. I write pretty slowly (Damn you correct cursive!) and I found taking notes and other misc. work stuff difficult. In the end I saved up and bought a palm (3100 I think?) and one of those fold out keyboards, some teachers stopped me using it but others were pretty supportive.
It made a huge difference, I always had a reliable source of legible notes and managed to get all A*-C's at GSCE which was far higher than I was estimated at.
Cut forward to the business world and damn, back to taking notes by pen and paper. Had to get myself a shiny Palm TX and one of those projector keyboards (Fucking swish) and now I am a minute god. My minutes can be word for motherfucking word.
But like you say the main issue is that giving people the means will end with them messing around, you can seriously limit the functionality quite easily with a purpose build machine so I'd quite like to see a sort of "Learning tablet" thing which is purpose build for it.
[QUOTE=OzJackal;32920229]Hah, I remember that exploit. I use the laptops for Chemistry (our teacher gives us multiple OneNote 'wraps' and distributes them to us) and a few other subjects but the laptop has just ended up being a $500 paperweight. It keeps breaking and simply isn't worth it anymore. Battery life depreciates very fast now - I think I can run it on Super Energy Saver for about 2 hours before it crashes which is useless for a 6 hour school day.[/QUOTE]
Hah, the battery in my laptop sucks as well. On just power saver (because super energy saver sucks) I can barely get through 4 hours of lessons before the battery runs out. I'll probably look around to see if I can get a new battery for my laptop, might check the Lenovo site or consult my TSO about it.
Ah that reminds me, the TSO and I have good chats whenever I go to see him. Although he says he's busy and won't be able to talk much, we still ended up on many occasions talking for over half an hour about all kinds of things, even when I have a class to get too (he always initially assumes I have study period). Even he misuses the laptops, back in 2010 telling me about his attempts to run Left 4 Dead on his own netbook. Anyways in a recent chat, he told me about a girl in my year who broke her laptop nearly once every term. He was not surprised as to why her laptop was faulty, because everytime she came to him she literally slammed the laptop down on his desk and even asked him to see what's wrong with the laptop. He finds it funny now though, because the warranty on the laptops has only very recently just ran out.
I actually looked at one of the DET laptops. You can turn off the proxy by going to a web interface that's locally on the computer.
I'm unable to write large amounts of text (say, a page length) without pains in my hand, and have very bad handwriting.
So yeah, I think they're good.
[QUOTE=OzJackal;32920229]It keeps breaking and simply isn't worth it anymore.[/QUOTE]
I can't use the Wi Fi on mine, making it only useful for taking notes. I never play games on it, since I'd rather just wait a few hours till I can go home and play the games on a much better PC or a console or whatever.
The odd thing about my laptop is that it seems to be much more responsive than my friends' laptops.
I have a feeling that the updates are bloating it up more. (Can't receive the updates because of the Wi-Fi issue I mentioned)
It's the most bullshit reason that it doesn't work.
It doesn't work because in the Network Adaptor Settings, the Wi-Fi adaptor is disabled.
I can't enable it because I don't have admin privileges. Yet our retarded laptop guy can't even fix it!
[QUOTE=OzJackal;32920229]Battery life depreciates very fast now - I think I can run it on Super Energy Saver for about 2 hours before it crashes which is useless for a 6 hour school day.[/QUOTE]
That's odd. I get a tonne of battery life on it. About half way with brightness and on maximum performance, it lasts the whole school day + an hour or two more.
I have to say, it seems that issuing laptops seems like to brings up a lot more problems (prohibitive cost, low battery life, distracting from what people should actually be doing) than what it helps out with. Writing stuff down isn't that time consuming, and specialist software can be accessed via static, networked desktops in computer labs. Of course the other advantage about using networked computers like that means that if a class is in a computer lab, the teacher can examine what everyone's doing at any time and send messages to anyone that's not doing the work they're supposed to be doing.
The problems could be remedied if you gave out some kind of specialised note-taking machine, but until then I think I'll stick with pen and paper.
As for the whole "well if they want to screw around let them" argument, I personally believe that only works up to an extent. I went to school wanting to learn but I always knew that at some point in the day (often most of the day) my mind would start to wander and my attention span would get short, and while I knew I should have been paying attention I just couldn't be bothered sometimes. Sue me, I'm lazy. A laptop with internet and a bypassable filter would have probably tipped me over the edge and I would have gotten even less work done.
[QUOTE=RearAdmiral;32920400]I have to say, it seems that issuing laptops seems like to brings up a lot more problems (prohibitive cost, low battery life, distracting from what people should actually be doing) than what it helps out with. Writing stuff down isn't that time consuming, and specialist software can be accessed via static, networked desktops in computer labs. Of course the other advantage about using networked computers like that means that if a class is in a computer lab, the teacher can examine what everyone's doing at any time and send messages to anyone that's not doing the work they're supposed to be doing.
The problems could be remedied if you gave out some kind of specialised note-taking machine, but until then I think I'll stick with pen and paper.[/QUOTE]
There was some talk that the DER (the program responsible for issuing laptops) would be closed down, because it's just not working out too well. Too many people don't treat their laptops right, many have been back to Lenovo for repairs. In fact every single laptop of the first year they were issued out had to be recalled a few months ago, to fix a minor fault somewhere in the laptop. Also of course I think the DET has realised that most people don't use their laptops entirely for their right purpose.
I remember seeing some tablet and stylus device a few months ago that looked really promising, I forgot what it was called. It had a screen with the lines going across it (like a textbook) and you could save the pages you created. Something like that would be great. It would still train in the use of the pen, and would give greater convenience than actual text books (saving work, editing and things like that). Would also use less space in a school bag. If anyone knows the name of it, please share because it really interested me.
[QUOTE=Profanwolf;32920190]On a sunday? What do you think[/QUOTE]Oh... right...
Pen and paper for the most part imo, except maybe for recap lessons or something when laptops would be really useful. I say this because generally my handwriting turns to something similar to spider shit after a large break from college.
Laptops would be nice, but I doubt the current economic situation permits this.
No. Maybe if in a form of an iPad connected to the flat surface of a desk, so that everyone can see what you're doing, especially your teacher. Having a laptop where you can hide will just have people procrastinating and doing other non-related assignments.
Pen and paper should be just fine otherwise.
Computers are a great tool and resource, schools are failing pieces of shit where logic doesn't apply.
Don't really got a good answer for ya :-/
[QUOTE=OzJackal;32920406]And where would I find such a switch? :wink:[/QUOTE]
Get back to work.
I used to earn money on people who had laptops from the schools.
Their security was shit, and of course our IT expert wasn't trusting Google because he accidentally turned safesearch off once.
I installed games like Minecraft and other small things on the computers. Didn't get much but it contributed to my "babyfat" that I have today.
People who want to use their school computers for other things than work should be allowed to do that. The school's can't be blamed for something they can't stop anyways.
[QUOTE=OzJackal;32920229]
Students in my school rarely use them for any good. We open a browser window or Word document in class once in a while, then play games for the rest of the battery life.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I was in my high school's laptop program back in 2004 on, and we didn't really use them for anything school-related.
Having said that, I use a laptop every day for university lectures, and it's amazing. I would be quite reluctant to go back to pen and paper. I think people are more mature on the whole in university, so they'll be less likely to be on Facebook or playing games the entire time.
I do think exams should be conducted on computers, too. My big problem with exams is that, because of the way in which I grip my pen and how hard I write, my hand begins to cramp up, which is incredibly painful. By the end of an hour and a half exam, it's often numb. I know other people have the same problem, and it negatively impacts on our results.
Edit: I don't know about other laptop programs, but in mine we paid for the laptops, and kept them after school ended. For obvious reasons, then, we were allowed to have personal shit on them.
[QUOTE=Profanwolf;32920147]I think restricting people like that is ridiculous, let people take their own responsibility.
If they want to play games instead of do the work they should, then they can. But of course you should be allowed to do more than just coursework and work on the laptop you got.[/QUOTE]
The problem is that the parents would complain about it. At our school, we never got given laptops, but they were put on trolleys for the whole school to use. Fuckers.
They are better for some things, but I don't think anything will ever beat writing out maths stuff with a pen and paper, or writing a whole essay just with pen and paper (although I'm sure some of you disagree I find it a lot more satisfying when I actually write it). Over here you're allowed to bring your own laptop or netbook if you really want to, but pretty much everyone would rather write normally.
Not having a laptop does not prevent me from playing games during lessons. If not games, doodling then.
[editline]23rd October 2011[/editline]
[QUOTE=icemaz;32920696]They are better for some things, but I don't think anything will ever beat writing out maths stuff with a pen and paper, or writing a whole essay just with pen and paper (although I'm sure some of you disagree I find it a lot more satisfying when I actually write it). Over here you're allowed to bring your own laptop or netbook if you really want to, but pretty much everyone would rather write normally.[/QUOTE]I write all my essays on computer. I type faster and more accurate than I do with hand.
Writing math is harder though.
I only perfered using a Laptop for stuff that required lots of writing, such as essays for say, english or history for example. I find it more comfortable to type it all out than to write it all out.
I've noticed that laptops are given out more in collage than high school. (In the UK), However, my collage course is rather computer heavy to begin with anyway, We have 3 hours of core skills, thats english, maths and IT. With the English we're given the laptops to do that kind of work in. In highschool i had to ask about if i could use a laptop for this essay or exam. Worth it though.
Maybe there could be a balance, Really it depends on how comfy the person is with writing. This might be more dependant on trust though.
Pens and paper. Computers+school=epic fail.
[QUOTE=icemaz;32920696]They are better for some things, but I don't think anything will ever beat writing out maths stuff with a pen and paper, or writing a whole essay just with pen and paper (although I'm sure some of you disagree I find it a lot more satisfying when I actually write it). Over here you're allowed to bring your own laptop or netbook if you really want to, but pretty much everyone would rather write normally.[/QUOTE]
I hate writing on paper, I prefer writing an essay or anything on a laptop ANY DAY.
I hate writing on paper, but it gets you used to writing for exams, where a computer's not allowed for obvious reasons.
[QUOTE=Hellduck;32922895]I hate writing on paper, but it gets you used to writing for exams, where a computer's not allowed for obvious reasons.[/QUOTE]Since when do you have to get used to writing?
Pens and paper.
Writing is a basic skill that everyone needs to have. I mean imagine everyone just forgot how to write and then one day the unthinkable happened - our technology failed us. There'd be no way to create new, physical records of anything, no way to easily copy a bunch of text over to someone else. We'd be royally fucked.
Plus, I think when you read and write stuff it sinks it more. It's also easier to do something like quickly jot down an equation if you're doing something like maths or science on paper, whereas on a laptop you have to do a whole lot of button pressing/selecting and formatting to create visible fractions, insert exponents, etc, etc.
Pen and Paper should be used, but notebooks should be used too.
We sometimes have a computer-based lesson, but then i'm mostly playing games.
When it comes to doing essays, I don't mind writing them down on paper. In fact I prefer doing it on paper because when you finally finish it, you get a nice feeling of satisfaction. My hand also only gets tired after writing 6 pages straight, and my writing is small as well. So that doesn't bother me that much.
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