Today's tour was Longwood University. The school requires all students to have laptops and has a deal with Dell to provide (at a cost to the student) laptops. The school has a support center which, naturally, gives more support to "Longwood Dells" than other computers. The campus is wired for computers everywhere, like all other schools we've seen.
I'm the last to say much negative about computers being a big plus for students and would have made all kinds of deals involving my soul to get a terrible computer by today's standards when I was in college. When No. 4 goes to school, she will have a computer, I can't see how she could do without one in today's world. The big "however" is the school seems to be more enamored with having the technology than with education. Yup, it's nice t be able to hit the internet with the laptop during class, but does this detract from the class. Also, I seem to remember that the effort of writing it down reinforces learning.
No. 4 is part of an "every student with a laptop" program in high school. I'm not convinced that this program is as much a plus to learning as it is thought to be. Are we more enamored with being "high tech" than enamored with how much you learn? There is a difference.
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