nytimes.com — "It used to be that getting ready for another school year meant buying a few new No. 2 pencils, spiral notebooks and a lunchbox. Not anymore. Young children and teenagers, as well as college students, are going to school with more electronic gadgets than ever."
Aug 17, 2006 View in Crawl 4
frizopAug 18, 2006
because it's spam
siplusAug 18, 2006
Always good to have an iPod with ya when your next class is on the other side of campus!
georgelogyAug 18, 2006
Students don't need all that crap. School is a place to learn, not play with toys.
josegutzAug 18, 2006
@ spidoman"Or kids who have worked hard, gotten scholarships, saved up and bought their own laptops and cellphones?" - First off you are assuming this is what I was aiming at. I am speaking of kids who are still in elementary and middle school. I did not mention the word "adult" anywhere in the post. Adults are people who "were" kids at one time. Are you still a kid?"Don't be bitter just because you don't/didn't/won't work hard enough, and save smartly enough to buy certain things."- Who's bitter here? I am just making a point. You don't even know me...Do you have kids? No? Well I have two kids and it is a major pain in the ass to hear it from them that they want a laptop for school and the other kids have one and all this and that. Unless I get a note from their teachers that they need one, I am not getting them each a laptop just so they can breeze through school like its easy. They can take notes like I did. Anyway I am here to help them if they need it. I went through school without one. Not all of us come from rich upbringing you know. I had to work very hard in High School to get where I am now. I worked two part time jobs while in high school... I had to help support my brothers and sisters who were still in elementary. I bet you have'nt worked a hard day in your life. You see... I learned what the value of a dollar is by working for it. That's the problem with many kids of this new generation. The parents are lazy and give them what they want just to shut them up. That's not how I want my kids growing up...Now I gave my kids a choice... If they want to work for it on their own and save up for one, then I am okay with it. I just want them to learn that's all.
heavyd14Aug 19, 2006
Personally, I think any parent who lets their child go off to college without a cell phone, unless they truly cannot afford it, is out of their mind. Same with a computer, not laptops though. I've seen very few who actually use them for notes, they are just a distraction. Besides, at least at my school, nearly all professors are posting their notes online, or hand them out in class. As for calculators, they depend on the class. I can't use them in Calc, but they really wouldn't help. What does help is a program like Maple. For Physics, there would be no way to finish the exams in the time given without one. My professors realize that at this level, they don't need to be testing our math skills, just our application of them.The other stuff you are correct about. They are just fun things to have. The GPS is stupid though. If you have trouble finding campus, you can use mapquest or google maps. After a week you should know the route. Once on campus, its going to be useless, and again, after a week, you will know it. I knew my way around campus in about a day, and I have a supposedly large campus.
tommorrisAug 19, 2006
I plead the fifth, ladies. I never defined what measure of "bigness" I was talking about - and London certainly has something at which it is bigger than everybody else. Now that a single zone 1 journey costs £3, I wouldn't be surprised if it was "biggest public transport prices", and once the Olympics comes around in six years time, it'll take the prize for "biggest waste of money in history". Plus we're less than 50¢ a gallon away from having the most expensive petrol in the world.That said, London is an "alpha world city" - drawn for first place:<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_city</a>
josegutzAug 20, 2006
@ spidoman No hard feelings dude...