We should deffinitley get laptops in school. There a great investment. Plus when your sick your missed work is posted on your laptop. AKBAR ALI is wrong THE END

It makes perfect sense to go to laptops and replace those out-of-date textbooks. This would eliminate the heavy backpack students often carry around. Also, it would hopefully help students realize there is more than one source for learning. I think the textbook companies should go into the power point business to help teachers in the classroom.

I am all in favor of getting rid of textbooks and getting laptops for all students. As it is, there is no more money for text books in MOST divisions. SO, since there's no money for texts, there would simply be no money for laptops, instead of no money for textbooks.

It would appear to me that the CENTRALissue facing a good number of school divisions is financing. One cannot expect divisions which are impoverished to produce technologically advanced materials when they are not even producing the nineteenth century's materials for their students, because there is no money to produce ANY materials for the students. Money has to come from someone or somewhere. WHERE IS THE MONEY?

Students currently get most information online, however very rarely do they actually READ anything. Instead they are looking for pictures and movies to get information. I can see a new age when textbooks become completely digital and include many pictures and movies (flash and digital video) to relay content. This can only be done through a computer or computer like device.

The use of computers and related technology is a no brainer. The fact that ubiquitous 1:1 access is not the norm speaks to the total lack of a national agenda. The arguments and rational for the above have been published over and over. It is time to move this issue.
However, the use of computers in the classroom must be accompanied by a pedagogy that maximizes student time on projects. Everything about school changes radically once an enlightened, real-world application of technology is integrated into the everyday life of a school (that is: beyond the present, unquestioned use of hardware and software in every school's business and guidance office).
It's time to move! We are ten years behind most business and industry applications...In fact, most households are way ahead of most schools....As Alan November has stated over and over: 'Kids power down to go to school". It is unacceptable. JT.

I'd like to maintain class sets of textbooks--holding, reading, running fingers across pages are all important and valuable in learning and I don't see a clear advantage in replacing books. However, laptops for all students at some grade level have become necessary. One advantage probably not yet reviewed is that with laptops, textbooks will be less likely a weighted resource and considering the review and adoption and yes, politically correct driven censoring process, less "weight" figuratively on textbooks would be most welcome.

The advantage of using a laptop would be that the computer could read to those that can't read. Since all students can't read at grade level this would give them the opportunity to get the information.

I do worry about the content being consistent and factual. The material will be as good as the subscription service. Right now the book may be outdated, but you still have access to it. If the district can't afford the subscription service to the textbook, what recourse do you have?

More than 5 years ago, I saw a working prototype of an 8 1/2 X 11 inch tablet format e-book that had terrific resolution, high storage capability, and simple page turning capabilities. The primary motivation for creating it, according to the Japanese developer, was to reduce the waste caused by paper-based media. As technologies like this reach marketability, maybe in the form of electronic notebooks, the environmental benefits will be significant...imagine just the tonnage of newsprint to be saved daily on a global basis, let alone magazines, paper-based advertisements and books. We have no choice...and the kids can become the first users and believers that this transition needs to happen.

I beleive that at some point it would be good but wrong at the same time.
On the good side, it can help students with the research they need and it makes it easier for them to do their homework.
But on the bad side, the students can get distracted very easily instead of focusing on what the teacher is teaching.
Anyway, in this case it would be a complicated situation!

Today (2006), textbooks are obsolete or misleading the day they come off the press. Their greatest value is to publishers, authors, salesmen, censors and paper mills. For students, they have only marginal utility and reinforce the feeling that education is boring.

Textbooks have no resale value. Students lose them and mutilate them, but never steal them. Between 1934 and 1979, I've estimated that I was exposed to a mimimum of 150 textbooks (50 in grades 1-12; 50 in undergraduate study and another 50 at the graduate level) and none of them were memorable. Years later, I learned that Muzzey's U. S. HISTORY text (12th grade) was "controversial." Unfortunately, no one ever pointed out what was controversial about it. The great triumvirate that is proving that education can be informative, entertaining and worthwhile are Brin, Page and the founder of Wikipedia!