My daughter is in 8th grade and we've finally settled on her high school choice for next year. One of the highlights of the chosen school is their award-winning student newspaper. We enjoy reading the articles already, as it gives us a flavor of what the environment will be like. A recent article that caught our attention and sparked some very intense family conversation was about the use of laptops at the school. Apparently, they are permitted in the classroom for note-taking but it's not well policed and the high schoolers have been frequently found to be using them for Facebook, email and web surfing right in the middle of a lesson.
Naturally, I find that upsetting. But a statistic in the well-written article indicated that the grade point average of those who regularly use their laptops at school ("for note taking purposes") were much higher than the GPA of peers who continued to take notes with pen and paper. The author also mentioned there were several subjects where note taking on a laptop doesn't work: math and science in particular.
My daughter pounced on the statistic as further evidence that she NEEDS a laptop for her high school years (and for college afterwards). I've been resistant to the idea. I just don't want to give her another expensive toy/tool like iPods or cell phones, that require regularly maintenance or get lost or damaged. I also have a big problem with those who are using their laptops to tune out the classroom, both to their own detriment but also the disrespect shown to their teachers. Still, the idea that those with laptops at the school are doing better than their classmates seems like an easy advantage to give her.
What are you doing? Does your high schooler have his/her own laptop? What limits did you put on it to make sure it was used appropriately? Did you require your child to achieve a particular GPA in order to keep the privilege? What is your school's policy? Am I hopelessly out-of-date on this topic? Please comment!
Original posting date: Friday, March 21, 2008 | 11:30 AM |