It’s not unusual for college students to bring laptops to class to take notes. But not only has the Evansville-Vanderburgh School Corporation in Indiana decided to allow the use of laptops in high school classrooms, the schools will rent netbooks to students for $70 per year on top of their existing annual textbook fee. Students from low income families who qualify for free or reduced lunch prices won’t have to pay the fee.
Students will be assigned a netbook that’s theirs to keep until they graduate. They’ll come with a one-year warranty, but students will be expected to pay for repairs or replacement if the netbooks are damaged after the warranty expires.
The school has ordered 7,200 netbooks from HP and teachers are expected to star training with the machines soon. It’s not clear from the article which netbook model the school has ordered, but given the fact that these things are supposed to last at least 4 years, I’m hoping they went with the HP Mini 2140 or the yet-to-be-released HP Mini 5101, both of which are a bit more durable than your typical netbook.
Netbooks are small, light, and cheap. And that makes them excellent devices for consumers and professionals on the go. But those same features also make the netbooks interesting to educators. The OLPC XO Laptop, arguably the first netbook, was designed specifically for students. But any low cost laptop with a smaller than average screen and keyboard could hold some advantages for teachers and students.
