“Indiana State University will become the first public university in the state to require all students to have notebook computers, beginning with incoming freshmen in fall 2007,” writes an anonymous reader in at Slashdot, linking to a Tribune Star advertorial. Apparently, the IBM Thinkpad is the preferred notebook; a quick glance at the online IBM store reveals that the cheapest of these at 750 US$ is also the heaviest at 5.8+ lb (ca. 3 KG).

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1 COMMENT

  1. “The notebook initiative gives us an opportunity to use technology to support learner-centered, knowledge-centered, assessment-centered and community-centered learning environments.”

    How many “centers” can you have?

    I sure hope they have the infrastructure to deal with support issues, connectivity problems, bandwidth thieves, malware, stolen hardware, and all the other problems that come with an initiative like this. It is one thing to secure your own network and your staff’s systems, but a college campus is best described as a controlled anarchy. I also see nothing in the article discussing supporting alternative platforms, such as Mac OS X or Linux, which will force some student (if they own desktops as well) to own two computers.

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