Should we or shouldn’t we? We should! The ongoing debate about the wisdom of using laptops in class gets a fresh look in this article by John Timmer.

Many schools are now adopting a 1:1 laptop to student ratio but not without hiccups. The benefits are numerous, and the flaws tend to center around the machines causing distractions, be it from aimless surfing, chatting, game-playing, etc. In my view, it’s nothing that a vigilant teacher cannot solve for the m0st part. And just when you get the laptops under control, another distraction will be lurking right around the corner.

In any case, whatever solutions are found now are likely to be a temporary fix, and the shrinking of laptops and rise of smartphones are going to provide the next generation of students with a wealth of new, and harder to manage, distractions.

(Come on, haven’t these distractions existed since the dawn of man? When I was young, the distractions were throwing paper airplanes, passing notes–love or otherwise–and drawing caricatures of the teacher. Isn’t this just a hi-tech version of that?)

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