One of the highlights of the start of my academic year or semester is actually looking for and buying my notebooks and pens. Yes, I consider that as a highlight for some reason. But somehow, I think that that kind of thrill isn't something that the younger generations would experience as vivid as me and my peers did.
See, just this semester I noticed something in one of my classes. As we were about to start the lectures and discussions, I pulled out my notebook and pen, ready to take down important notes. My seatmates did the same. Most of my classmates pulled out things from their bags as well. The thing is, it wasn't notebooks and pens, instead, it was laptops, iPads, and digital cameras. While I was writing, they were typing and taking pictures. While I was turning to the next page, they were pressing enter. While I was crossing out mistakes, they were pressing the backspace key or deleting pictures.
And it wasn't isolated to that one particular class either. In my other class wherein a lot of my classmates where freshmen, this also happened. And it was even the freshmen who were using their laptops and iPads. It kind of caught me by surprise, is this now the norm?
I remember it very clearly, back when I was a freshman in 2007, laptops were almost exclusively seen used by the students that really needed it (e.g. students taking up BS Computer Science), or by the students who came from wealthier families. I'll probably have around two or three classmate who would use their laptops to take down notes. There were already those taking photos of presentation slides, but most used their camera phones, contrast to today's digicams and DSLRs. I even remember I had some classmates use their cellphones to record what the professor was saying during the lectures, only for them to listen to it later on to check if they missed something during the lecture.
Now, what am I getting at? I am in no way saying that using laptops and cameras are bad, or the students would learn less if they use laptops instead of notebooks and pens. This tells me two things. First, is that the population of the students in the university is certainly trending into having students from richer families. One may argue that the lowering costs of laptops may actually be the cause of the increase in number of student laptop users, and not because that they come from wealthier families. I won't argue against that. However, when the laptops that you see are more of the Macs, HPs, and Sony Vaios, instead of the laptop notebooks, then I tend to think that that is because to be coming from a more well of family. Now, is this a bad thing? Not necessarily. If these "rich kids" are also the most qualified students to enter the university, then there is absolutely no issue.
Second, it just shows me how fast technology is evolving and is becoming more accessible. Like I said, just as few as five years ago, classrooms just felt so traditional and, pardon the pun, old school. Now, it feels so familiar, yet very different. It makes me think, how much more will the classrooms change in another five years? in a decade? Will notebooks be essentially "extinct" in the foreseeable future?
Second, it just shows me how fast technology is evolving and is becoming more accessible. Like I said, just as few as five years ago, classrooms just felt so traditional and, pardon the pun, old school. Now, it feels so familiar, yet very different. It makes me think, how much more will the classrooms change in another five years? in a decade? Will notebooks be essentially "extinct" in the foreseeable future?
