A laptop for every student

A laptop for every student ...... Tool for education .... Connection with the global learning community. The opportunity to participate in a global thinktank - float an idea, others build upon it and just watch what happens next. Sounds pretty exciting to me. If we want the knowledge explosion, the next revolution - an intellectual revolution based on constructive collaboration, then I think we need to get computers into the hands of kids eleven and twelve years oldnow and see where they take it. Let them start early and grow with it and shape their relationships with computers their way - as they see fit. Each child will go in a different direction and that's o.k. It won't always be where the teachers or parents expect or maybe not in the way that they always approve of, but with proper guidance and filters, I believe that the results are likely to lead to a greater good and yield unimaginable results.

My 11 year old is teaching herself HTML, driven by the desire to design her own website. When I had to do that for a class this summer, it was an intimidating task for me, I questioned my ability. But she has a goal, no fears, no limitations, and she's forging ahead. What will she learn? What will that knowledge and confidence allow her to do next? I'm anxious to find out.

Of course we worry about the durability of the computers - the maintenance costs. Will the students be responsible enough to handle the computer properly? Will the investment losses be too great. But then I think how we allow 5th and 6th grade children to take $700 trumpets, $2000 saxophones, $800 violins on the bus to and from school each day with little mishap. So, maybe it will be o.k. to put a laptop in every backpack.

Will the benefits outweigh the costs? I think the risks of not providing laptops, (i.e., what we might miss out on) are just too high to chance.