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Laptops Required for Freshmen

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Mar 01, 2006 11:45 AM
from the seems-like-a-good-idea-to-me dept.
Education Hardware
An anonymous reader writes "Indiana State University will become the first public university in the state to require all students to have notebook computers, beginning with incoming freshmen in fall 2007. Guess which laptop is the preferred one..." I started bringing laptops to class around my Junior year. I'm unconvinced that they helped me with my grades.
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Laptops Required for Freshmen 25 Comments More /

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  • This must be stopped now. If this continues, then they may start telling students where to live, or what books to buy.
    • Just think what will happen when they start telling the freshmen what classes they have to take! The horror!
      • On the bright side, students will most likley pay less for their laptop than they will for their books.

        Yes, but in three years, the laptop will be so old and out of date, they'll have to purchase a new one.

        I completed my undergraduate studies 17 years ago, and let me tell you, that Calculus 101 Textbook is STILL providing me with many nights of riveting thrills and spills. I re-read it at least as often as I re-read Lord of the Rings....

  • So they can share music, movies, pr0n, all wirelessly?

    Or so they can sit in class and play online games while the prof is droning on and on?

    Why is this necessary?
    • Or so they can sit in class and play online games while the prof is droning on and on?

      Why is this necessary?

      About 15 minutes ago, I left my weekly project status meeting here at work. About 25% of the attendees are actively USING their laptop in the meeting. A couple of weeks ago, I saw a project leader playing Tetris during this meeting. So, if nothing else, playing games on the laptop in class will prepare the class of 2007 for their future life in the real world.

  • I'm not quite sure why this article is a big deal? As far as I know a number of schools have been requiring laptops for years. I know UNC-Chapel Hill has for maybe 5 years now (while its neighbor Duke gives incoming freshman ipods)

    ~shrug~
  • You're required to have a thunkpad.

  • Breaking News (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Nom du Keyboard (633989) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @11:50AM (#14826749)
    And in breaking news, laptop computer theft suddenly surpasses bicycle theft at the university. Details at eleven.
  • I won't deny that Thinkpads are nice PC laptops, but it sounds like they're really pushing them on the students. They shouldn't give just one recommendation. They should be offering a set of basic system requirements that student laptops should meet or exceed in order to get them through four or five years of college, and give Mac, Linux and Windows recommendations, along with other software they should have. Something like this can only be attributed to the fact that IU must have gotten a sweetheart dea
    • My guess is that there's probably a deal in there somewhere (as you mentioned, Lenovo) that takes advantage of the ignorance of parents who are basically footing the bill anyhow. I imagine that either mom or dad will say, "The school recommends a ThinkPad, and that's what were getting you. I don't want my little Nancy/Johnny to be behind any of the other students because we got them a computer that might not work. What's that honey? You say you like your Powerbook better? Nonsense, this new computer will wo

  • Guess which laptop is the preferred one..

    They've used Thinkpads at RPI [rpi.edu] for some time and they are great machines. The school, however, does not require you to keep the default OS/software package. You simply find yourself in trouble when your assignment requires MatLab and you don't have it installed anymore - though generally you can just borrow a friend's.

    There is nothing wrong with suggesting a laptop with a good support track record, lots of academic/scientific software available, and and wide u

  • It'll be another "let's use all proprietary windows intel only tools" scam.

    I only got my laptop in the second half of my program and frankly aside from giving me something to do during class (e.g. read slashdot) it didn't help. I did most of my lab work at home and very little on the laptop at school.

    Now if this uni went the way of OSS and used proper open source networking resources then I may be in favour of it...

    But knowing most unis they're just a money pit so who do you think they'll align with.

    Tom
  • Although the article reads like one big advertisment, I've always liked the thinkpads. I bought mine while the line was still under IBM. Does anyone have experience with Levano??
  • Thinkpad. Not a bad choice for a Windows/Linux laptop.

    Once Windows emulation is working well, though, I think a MacBook (Pro or not) would be a better choice. Fewer security issues, better GUI and applications, and it runs more software. Apple is sure looking good these days... :-)

    MacBooks might even be less expensive!

  • Through Access Connections, students and faculty will be able to seamlessly move from classes to dorm rooms

     Through the ancient and hallowed technology known as 'feet', students and faculty will be able to seamlessly move from classes to dorm rooms

    Fixed.

  • Remember its just a tool... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WebHostingGuy (825421) * on Wednesday March 01 2006, @11:54AM (#14826802) Homepage Journal
    Requiring a laptop will not help a student get better grades. Far too often people don't realize that a computer is just a tool which enables you to do something else more efficient. It is not the end all solution to every problem. Unless the computer is needed in the class or you suck at hand-writing notes there is no need for it (and no, IM the cute girl one row over doesn't count as a need). I've had quite a few college classes and I am willing to say less than 5% need a laptop as a course requirement. This seems more like the school is saying we are on the cutting edge because every student uses a laptop. Big whip, show me where this is definately improving grades, quality of work or anything else.

  • Laptops in Class? Bad Idea (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Prototerm (762512) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @12:23PM (#14827138)
    OK, Firsta disclaimer: When I went to a University, the only "laptop" that existed was a tray table you used when you were sick, and a "calculator" was also called a "slide rule". Anyway...

    In my opinion, there would only be one way a laptop would be useful, and that's if every one of your text books could be loaded on it electronically, thereby avoiding the need to lug books around all day to class. Of course, in the real world, this would create a problem, because publishers would put DRM on their ebooks, and make sure you couldn't buy and sell second hand texts. You have that problem to some extent now, of course. I remember a teacher who made sure to check each student's text book on the first day of class, to make sure it was the latest one. It turned out he was getting a cut from the publisher of everything sold by the campus book store in an under-the-table deal. A second teacher did the same thing, but he co-authored the book. I think he taught the Business Ethics class :)

    Anyway, I question the need for forcing students to spend even more of their hard-earned money on a specific hardware/OS combination on something that really serves no purpose. Of course, I'd say the same thing about a college education in general, but I digress. If they want to use a computer for their term papers, fine. If they want to live in the previous century and use a typewriter (they still make them, right?), then more power to them.

    I can see only very limited benefits to doing this, none of them for the student.

    And for crying' out loud, don't enable wifi or cell phone reception in the classroom, either! Students don't need it, and the teachers don't (or shouldn't) want it. Teachers have enough to worry about as is.

  • Useful for some (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sg3000 (87992) * <sg_public@mac. c o m> on Wednesday March 01 2006, @12:31PM (#14827236)
    A laptop is useful for some but not for others

    I used my 17" PowerBook G4 during the two and a half years of getting my MBA*, and I found it invaluable. I used it in three ways:

    First, I converted the professor's inevitable PowerPoint presentations into PDFs and used Acrobat to take notes. (Admittedly I prefer when professors don't use PowerPoint. Do it on a marker board if you must write something. PPT is too lazy.)

    Second, I used an application called InkBook [magesw.com] along with a cheapo Wacom tablet which allowed me to do sketches and take notes which were parsed into English, a la the Newton of yore.

    Third, I would often receive case studies as a PDF, so I could quickly take notes and refer back to them during class.

    The benefit was I didn't have to carry around a folder with a bunch of paper notes, and I can refer to my notes even to this day. I'm very comfortable with using a computer as my primary tool during class, as I suspect many on Slashdot may agree.

    However, I noticed that while everyone in class had a computer, few used it the way I did.

    There was a lot of reading emails, playing games, or browsing the web during class (admittedly, when I got bored, I did that, too). Although some people took notes in PowerPoint, many people just printed stuff out and hand wrote their notes, so their laptop was just for messing around. If that's the case, then I don't see a benefit with requiring students to have a computer. If the person isn't comfortable with it, and the class isn't significantly enhanced by using it, then there's no point.

    Plus, I'd be pissed if my school forced me to use a laptop of their choosing, rather than what I believe works best for me.

    __
    *hey! before you harass me, consider my relatively low Slashdot user ID. I will accept the taunting and mockings from only 87991 other users.

  • Laptops don't help with grades. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by massysett (910130) on Wednesday March 01 2006, @01:20PM (#14827800) Homepage
    I started bringing laptops to class around my Junior year. I'm unconvinced that they helped me with my grades.

    For my first two years of law school I took a laptop to class. I'm utterly unconvinced that they helped me with grades. Laptops do allow students to take more verbose notes, as one can type faster than he can write. However I did not find this to be a benefit. If anything, greater verbosity to review for exams turned out to be a hinderance.

    My last year of law school I got tired of carrying around my Dell clunkster. Some people had Palms and folding keyboards that they used to take notes. I considered going this route, but decided to reject it to try an alternative on a trial basis: pens and spiral notebooks. Light, easy to carry, no technical failures. It worked great.

    On distractions: yes, sure, some people will use laptops to play games in class. These are the same people who would otherwise be daydreaming or drawing doodles. With pen and paper, I would daydream and draw doodles.

    Finally though, laptops have the potential to improve class interactions and learning experiences. In law school a few students would use IM during class. Sure, sometimes they were gossiping, but often they were helping each other with the material that was being discussed. Another neat idea would be to have a chat room for the class, going on at the same time as the lecture.

    But for the most part, class is just a waste of time anyway. Just a rehashing of reading material. In those cases laptops won't help anything.

        • Something's messed up with your system. That's not how it works; the auto-switching features of OS X are quite "smart" in my experience (assuming you have it set up to join any available network when no preferred ones are connected). I think the default is to prompt the user when connecting to a non-whitelisted, unencrypted network, however.

          That said, my corporate laptop doesn't do a horrible job of WLAN management either, although I use a 3rd party program rather than the built-in Windows tools to manage d
        • This sounds like a known bug in some versions of the Airport software. You can fix it by re-running the Network Setup Assistant. From the Terminal run, open /System/Library/CoreServices/Network\ Setup\ Assistant.app. Then recreate all your connections. For some reason simply removing and recreatng the connections in Internet Connect or System Preferrences does not fix it, but running the setup Asistant does. Probably deletes some preference file. I never really investigated the details.
        • Because you think Thinkpads are cheap? What world do you live in?

          Cheapest Thinkpad: $750 [ibm.com]
          Cheapest Powerbook: $1750 [apple.com]

          That's $1000. Go away.
            • "Cheapest Ford: $11,000
                Cheapest Porsche: $45,000

                That's $34,000. Go away.

                Don't spout numbers without comparing Specs."

              But if all you need to do is drive to and from class, what's the point of spending another $34,000?

              Just like there is no point in spending an extra $1000 on a laptop when all you need is a web browser and an office suite.
            • Specs:

              Can travel at the maximum legal limit in all states:
              Ford: YES
              Porsche: YES

              Refuelable at all gas stations in the US
              Ford: YES
              Porsche: YES (but requires "special" premium gas at extra cost)

              Passenger capacity
              Ford: 4
              Porsche: 2

              Legal on all roads in US
              Ford: YES
              Porsche: YES

              Servicable at most local service stations and dealers
              Ford: Yes, extensive dealer network in almost every city
              Porsche: No, limited dealer network, hard to find parts

              Tell me again about those specs? Just like apple... except the macs can't fue

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