[The Great RJ]

I teach at a college where all students and faculty have tablet PC's. The students essentially lease their PC with a $200 per quarter IT fee. Given the fee and that they are financially responsible for the PC and its repair if it is lost, stolen or damaged, they are very responsible with it.

While the tablet PC is a very valuable addition to teaching in a college setting, I can't imagine the chaos if a public school system just gives laptops to students at the high school level or lower. I would bet that many of the laptops will simply disappear, be damaged or stolen in the first few weeks and the rest will be used primarily to look at Internet porn and download music files instead of being seriously used in classes.

[jude24]

I'm in law school. The vast majority of the students use laptops in class, ostensibly for note-taking. The law school building is essentially a big wireless internet hotspot; makes accessing cases off of the databases lawyers use a cinch.

But, even at the law school level, I've been told by people sitting in the back that the laptops are used for anything but notetaking. IM, internet, email, etc.

Now, I'll plead guilty to keeping outlook in the background, and if an interesting or critical email comes through, I read it, but the simple fact of the matter is that my mind is boggled that people don't pay attention in class.