alt Hacker NewsLaptops are NOT useful for any reason in a school classroom below the 9th grade or so. No, not even for test taking, educational videos, or interactive demos.
Maybe for computer science classes, but even there I'd prefer to use shared desktop computers.
There is a lot of research that shows that the depth of understanding the material directly depends on the amount of effort you put in. Or that actually writing down things by hand increases the amount of recall.
And to add to this, it looks like fine motor skills also directly influence brain development and may improve the IQ. The association of higher IQ with better fine motor skills is now well-established, but it also might work in reverse.
This seems highly prescriptive and absolutist.
There’s a big difference between “having a tool available” and “using it all the time for everything.”
We are not talking about replacing writing and reading on paper.
I was fortunate that my middle and elementary schools had computers. They weren’t used all day long. We used them to do things like learning typing skills and look up references on library computers. I remember using an old Apple II program (old even back when I was in school) in an applied technology class where we designed a car and tested its performance. Yes, before 9th grade. The whole class was kind of like an introduction to some engineering concepts, which involved a rotation of different stations we would go to where we did some interactive assignments. It was both fun and inspiring, and, dare I say, a computer was involved.
I’m now just remembering that we even learned BASIC programming in 8th grade!
One of my most fond memories of middle school was a mock publishing competition where students wrote essays and stories and pitched them to other groups of students acting as publishers with a budget. I remember using interesting fonts on the titles of my typed out stories to try and stand out and market myself.
Later in high school (admittedly, after the grade 9 cutoff you prescribed, more on that later), we used them in a multimedia class to learn to do basic graphic design as well as writing proper business letters to request permission from magazines to use their covers for a multimedia project. (Of course, with fair use, we didn’t have to ask, but the whole point was to learn to properly contact and communicate with business professionals).
I can’t imagine what it would be like if my school didn’t have the funding to have these tools available to teach what we now know are essential life skills. I probably wouldn’t have ended up making well above median income in the technology industry.
I think your 9th grade cutoff is particularly silly. You can start subjects like algebra before high school. You really think there are kids doing formal classes like programming and digital design/art before high school? Go look into some of the curriculum course list for some of the top middle and high schools in the country.