The other day I read in one of the "local" newspapers that Clemson
University is seriously considering requiring all incoming science and
engineering freshmen to have laptop computers, beginning in fall 2002.
Some other schools already have a similar requirement, of course.
This started me wondering: How could we take advantage of such a
situation in our classrooms, both introductory level and upwards? Assume
that we have wireless networking or something similar in all our
classrooms, because we are in fact about to expand and renovate our
science building.
Frankly, I'm skeptical about in-classroom applications apart from
occasional special situations, not least because students would need to be
able to use various kinds of software effectively, both general-purpose
and specialized; and we all know the general level of calculator-using
skills.
Labs are another matter, of course. Most of our introductory students are
now in the habit of doing graphs on the computers in the "micro lab" down
the hall. The pre-meds and biology majors learn how to do that early on
in biology and chemistry classes. But none of them, in my recollection,
have taken the initiative to do their calculations on a spreadsheet; so
that's something that we would have to teach them explicitly.
--
Jon Bell <jtbell@presby.edu> Presbyterian College
Dept. of Physics and Computer Science Clinton, South Carolina USA