The answer to the question of laptops vs. textbooks should be obvious when you consider the real question -- "What is the real purpose/function of education?"

Textbooks, calculators, pens, paper, computers, maps, and typewriters ... and the list goes on, are all tools. For any one tool to totally replace another it must provide at minimum, equal service and capabilities. A notebook computer cannot provide equal or even greater capability than a textbook. The most basic support for this statement is that you can take a textbook anywhere, anytime, without regard to any form of power source (excluding ambient light) and it will function. This is not so of a computer (at the present time). There are many other comparisons that could be made between textbooks and computers extolling the differences but none of these really address the question of the purpose of education.

If we can agree that (and I suggest that we should) the purpose/function of education is to provide students with knowledge and skills that can be transferred between disciplines and applied to real life problems and situations, then we can spend less time addressing whether textbooks should be replaced with laptops and spend more time on how each can individually and cooperatively be applied to meeting that end.

There have been many approaches to providing education to students and many of these processes and methods have been repeatedly recycled. We are still looking for the "right" or "best" way to provide students with the best education possible. What we have found and acknowledged is that there is no singular way a person learns. If people all learn differently, how can we justify the use of one tool over another to achieve this end.

What we should be discussing is how to use the computer to augment our educational system rather than what can it replace.

• Re: What are we Really Trying To Do?? Terry , February 14, 1999 (0)
• Re: What are we Really Trying To Do?? Ragena Blankenship, February 12, 1999 (0)