Slashdot Mirror
When Should You Buy Your Kid A Laptop?
GuitarNeophyte writes "Marketwatch News reports that some people say that we should be buying our kids laptop computers well before they get into the higher education realm. Even as early as middle school. From the article: 'These days, it's almost unquestioned that college-bound students will tote laptops back to school. For parents of high school and middle school kids, the decision to invest in a laptop is far from given.'"
When your kid is responsible enough to have a laptop and look after it.
Until then; you get an abicus, son.
You buy a kid a laptop when they are so cheap that you can afford to buy a new one every month. You know they're going to get broken, stolen, lost etc.
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
Until you trust your kids to browse the internet and use their computer responsibly, give them a desktop and orient its monitor so that it can be seen by you and your spouse when you casually walk by. (BTW this means do *not* let them have a computer in their bedroom!)
Giving them a laptop to take to their friends' houses is just inviting them to access all sorts of nasty stuff.
The best possible choice? Set up your offspring's computer(s) in your own home office. What you loose in distraction, you'll gain in piece of mind and time spent with them.
a laptop is one tool for education and can be used as part of a kid's schooling, but buying one just for the sake of buying one and giving it to a kid and expecting them to become smart is just silly.
what question should be asked is "when is a good time to start using a laptop in the context of my kids wider education" and I think that comes way after being able to write and read and do math and critically think what they read and not before
What ever happened to pen and paper? God forbid we actually make kids LEARN the English language, let's just hook them up to spellcheckers ASAP and stop worrying about it.
I don't think ANY child should be given free acess to a spellchecker until he or she can read and write at a college level. It's meant to allievate your work, not do it for you.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
Sorry,
My children will not have their own laptop until they get to about 10th grade.
Why? They need the basics, read, writing, and math. Having a computer just makes them more dependant on the spell checker, the calculator, etc.
Maybe it's just an unspoken myth, but computers don't make you smarter. Having access to loads of information doesn't make you smarter.
Good study habits, excellent reading skills, solid math and logic will get them to where ever they want to go.
Disclaimer. I use a computer all day as a system admininistrator/programmer. I enjoy using computers, but they don't make me smarter.
This space available for rent.
I'm sure your kid would've amazed you with a desktop as well...I figure laptops are not necessary for children to be exposed to the internet & computing.
& as far as laptops for college? Unnecessary. I hated it when people were play solitaire in front of me while the prof was attempting to teach.
Why a laptop, though? As cheap as laptops are, desktops are cheaper and more upgradeable. You can buy your kid a desktop computer during the middle school years, and upgrade it occassionally until the kid gets to high school or college and needs (or wants) a laptop or a faster gaming machine.
:)
I had a laptop for a bit in high school, purchased used with my own money. It was fun, no doubt, but it wasn't something I really made full use of until college & work. That's when the portability of a laptop really kicked in as a necessity for me. Do students really need that kind of portability?
At any rate, I do agree with the notion of having a computer instead of an xbox or PS2 - at least, that's worked for me. Of course, a lot of friends had gaming consoles so I could just mooch off of them
My first laptop I got for my senior year of high school. I didn't have parents who just went out and bought me expensive computer equipment, of course, and that's why I'm kind of laughing at this article.
The only way for the kid to really grasp the value of his new laptop is if he works his ass off all summer to earn the money to buy it himself.
I've upped my standards, so up yours.
The only way for the kid to really grasp the value of his new laptop is if he works his ass off all summer to earn the money to buy it himself.
Well, normally I would agree but in the case of my laptop, which was purchased 12/1996 for the sole purpose of me bringing it to college (tight spaces for desktops) 8/1997, I have to disagree.
My laptop was about $3600 at the time. I fully understood the true value of the device and the sacrifice my parents made to make it a reality for me...
My proof? It remains in full working order to this day on my coffee table in my living room -- relegated to web browsing and SSH and plugged into the wall for power (the battery started keeping a charge for less than two minutes in 2002).
Just because I didn't "work my ass off all summer" for it doesn't mean I wasn't able to appreciate it and care for it properly.
I find laptops absolutely essential for college. The problem with desktops at school is that you end up working where you sleep. I find it incredibly useful to have one place to work, one place to sleep, and the rest of town to enjoy myself. One coffee shop I frequent (I mean 6 times a week, for several hours at a time), is filled with fellow students just working on their laptops or books & papers. I really can't work nearly as efficiently when my computer's in the same place I relax or sleep -- I've tried!
And for every ten folks that has a laptop, maybe one brings them to class. The ones that do it for solitaire would be unlikely to pay attention in class even if there was no laptop. OTOH, I've got friends that swear to using tablet PCs as notetaking devices.
Care about electronic freedom? Consider donating to the EFF!
Second quote that stuck out for me:
Wow. I have an army of teachers that prayed I kept my inside/outside classroom behavior to a minimum (let's say the principal and I got to know each other really well). I am a staunch supporter of separation of duties - much like in the work place. I work from 8-5, and anything beyond that is my time. I am talking boundaries here people!I don't see what is wrong with a computer lab just being a computer lab, and a classroom being a classroom. If things become too blurred with computer technology then we are going to loose basics in the classroom: spelling, basic math by hand, structured thought, and a respect for authority and setting.
Maybe you should pay more attention to the lecture instead of what your fellow students are doing? As for kids not needing to be exposed to the Internet, just when do you think someone should learn about this new fangled Interweb thingy? Or would you like them to disrupt your game playing on your machine to do homework?
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
Laptops aren't necessary (but are still helpful, since labs can be crowded at times) in college unless you're a computer science major. My laptop was invaluable during a system administration course that I recently took. It's also been very helpful throughout my four years, as it gives me the ability to ssh into the school's server and work on my programs wherever I happen to be.
Laptops are useful, but, as with everything in college, it's up to the student to use them responsibly. If you're the type that will automatically fire up solitaire when the laptop is on, you shouldn't have one or should keep it off during class.
i am amazed at the number of computer illiterate 18-22 year olds on campus. i would guess at half of that population, easy.
always mosh clockwise
I tried using a laptop to take notes at one point. It just doesn't work. A notepad and paper are FAR superior to a laptop for taking notes. The computer is just a distraction. That's it.
Actually, I went through several computer "aids" for taking notes. The first was an iPaq. You just can't enter information fast enough (think, scrolling, botched text recoginition, poor tactile feedback as a "pen") to effectively take notes compared with a notepad. The largest problem, though, was that most classes involved diagrams or notations that you simply can't do on an iPaq as fast as you can on a notepad. There's just not enough room.
So I got a keyboard attachment, since I can touch-type at something like 50WPM or something. (I haven't bothered measuring, it's a wild guess.) This helped with the text parts of notes, but it utterly failed for every class except history. The only reason it worked for my history class was because history involved taking down a LOT of text notes. (And the only diagrams in that class were timelines, which you can "fake" by just writing "Year: Event" on each line.)
I also tried using a full-fledged laptop in a CS course. It's also completely ineffective due to the "diagram" issue. CS courses aren't all code - most of them involve decision trees or logical tables or some other graphical representation of a concept. (Try drawing a finite state machine using only text. It just doesn't get the message across as effectively as pen and paper.)
The laptop was useful on campus - but not in class. In class, it was only a distraction. It was insanely useful between classes where you might get an hour off and sit down somewhere and do some homework without wandering back to the dorm.
Don't get a laptop with the theory it's going to help you in class. It won't. That doesn't mean it can't help you in college at all, but if you try and use it during class, it'll just wind up being a distraction.
Except in history class. :)
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Two years ago I started attending a computer engineering program at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. I bought a laptop with wlan when I started, but I sold it about a year later. Why? There were computers available in abundance everywhere and I got tired of toting around a 3kg laptop and my regular books in my bag. I could not afford a lighter laptop at the time. But on the other hand a lighter laptop would probably have a screen that was too small for my taste.
I decided to get a new desktop machine at home and kept my home dir in school in sync with a folder at home using unison. That worked great in both the WinXP and Red Hat environment that the school is using.
I have both a desktop and a laptop. Take either away, and my lifestyle wouldn't work out. I take my laptop to class and take notes (copious notes - 2,000 lines or more of plain text for a semester in one class) on it. I can't read my own writing, and I can type extremely fast, so it works out really well for me. Additionally, I go to the law library and study there most of the time, taking more notes on my laptop. Then I upload them to my desktop (actually, I use Unison to synchronize both machines to a server located elsewhere - nerdiest law student, EVAR) and compile them into study outlines from there.
Try doing any of that with pen and paper, even if you can write fast enough to keep up with the professor and still read your own writing.
As to the actual point of this article - buying laptops for kids in high school or earlier - I am not a fan of the idea, for a lot of reasons. But the one that I'm going to mention right now is this: High schoolers are, on average, less mature than college kids are, and tend to lose and break anything that's remotely portable. It's bad enough that they're out crashing the family car, don't send them out with a $2,000 laptop to bust up, too. Your kids can use your "family PC." Kick them off if you need it. If they want their own computer, they should buy one. It's a really good time to learn priorities and responsibility, and you shouldn't spend money to deprive them of the opportunity.
My dad gave me his old computer when I was around 12. That summer I learned about bbs's and discovered commander keen. Best experience of my life. I learned all about DOS comands and .bat files. A laprop might be better for a college student but I say get the kid weened on to computers by giving him an old one when s/he is around 12.
I was lucky to have access to computers from a relatively early age (5ish) because my dad worked for a University that gave him a Mac SE when he became a professor. Since then we had a series of Macs and then PCs in the house over the years (Mac SE -> Powerbook 160 -> Mac LC3 -> HP Pavillion 200MHz -> eMachine 500MHz) until I went off to college, at which point I built my own machine.
The way it always worked was it was the FAMILY computer, not mine (though I was the only one really using it). This meant it had to be in an accessable room (i.e. not my bedroom) and I couldn't lock away any files on it or bar anyone else from any part of the PC for any reason. I also had to turn over the computer whenever anyone had a real need for it. This was basically a zero-privacy deal where what I was doing on the computer could be checked at a moment's notice.
I was caught surfing porn once. I was told that if I was caught again, it would be the end of computer and net access for a LONG time to come. The rule basically was if they caught me doing something bad, that was my first and only warning. The PC was not mine, the connection was not mine, I had to share it and be open to inspection whenever they felt like it.
I was still able to strip the thing down, rebuild it and learn all the ins and outs of it. But I knew I there were risks and concequences to doing "bad" stuff. My parents were able to keep an eye on my activities without keeping me from learning. THey were also aware of all the violent video games I played, they knew because they had to take me out to buy it, and they'd come up and watch me play every now and then.
It was the correct balance (IMO) of parental responsibility and child freedom. I don't think it's a good idea to give a young kid their own laptop and send them off to their rooms. It's too easy for them to get lost in the bad stuff, and too hard for the average parent to monitor. If I someday have kids, there will be a family PC setup in the same room as my equipment. The kids will have largely free reign over it, but it won't be hidden from sight, they'll know what is and isn't allowed and the consequences will be clearly outlined.
Also, I know I took much better care of my computer equipment once I had to earn the money to buy and maintain it. When it was given to me by my parents, I just sort of took it for granted.
having a laptop in class never really helped me. sure, i could type up notes, but i don't take many to begin with anyhow. i found that in the majority of my classes, i ended up using pen and paper anyway, as a math/cs major. diagrams, flow charts and little visiual queues greatly out numbered raw code that was generated in my classes.
now, the one technological advance that would benefit EVERY STUDENT, 100%, no matter their computer literacy, typing speed, course load or distraction threshold, is a simple, affordable ebook reader. make the viewable screen 8x10 or 11, use e-paper so it can run for months on a set of watch batteries and pad the living shit out of it so it'll be more durable. distribute recquired school texts as PDF on CF cards and you've just solved one of the biggest problems in american schools: students who have to lug 50lbs of text with them throughout the day because they don't have time between periods to stop off at dormrooms/lockers for the next round.
this is where the inovation should be. add a simple input interface and you could have information cross referenced between documents and suppliments. figure out how to make ultra-low energy draw wifi cards and you could link them to a national database for easy inquiries on specific topics. hell, you could have two models, the Standard that displayed and cross-referenced the info on the CF card, and the deluxe that allowed the user to "take notes" and link it to a specific page of a text (to accommodate those of us who like to write in the margins). if you had one of these designed like a portfolio with one screen on either side of the fold you could make one side the "book" side and the other the "note" side..
we're really missing the boat on this one, folks. students in general don't need full fledged laptops. all they need is an easy and convenient way to read and reference text.
in this scenario, they students who would truly benefit from laptops could still have one. but i'm willing to bet that the percentage of stuents nowadays who could really use a laptop to broaden their education to be around 5-7%, no greater than 15%. the rest would either use it in the fashion i describe for the e-book or use it to dick around in class while the teacher isn't looking..
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!