November 7, 1997

In this issue:

• Laptop follies at the U of A
• An Educational Sabbath

The Faculty of Engineering is considering forcing engineering students to purchase laptops. The motivation for such a drastic plan is described in the Report from the Task Force on Instructional Technology. The report cites the need to `improve and enhance the education experience' and to provide greater opportunity to learn much needed computer skills. The Faculty of Engineering also finds it too expensive to maintain computer labs.

The proposal would see students leasing laptops for between $1,000 to $1,500 per year. Anyone who has bought a computer knows the lower range of the estimate is implausible. Of course these laptops would be eligible for tax deductions like tuition wouldn't they? Actually they would be eligible for tax credits (not at all the same thing) and only if the leasing fee is assessed as part of tuition fees. So the proposal so far involves a $1,500,000 expenditure per year for every 1,000 students involved.

What benefits would students see for such a large annual expenditure? Well, the major benefit is that these laptops will act as 'a catalyst for change' in the words of the report. What does this mean? It means professors will have greater incentive to provide multimedia, interactive courseware. Of course the report mentions that professors will not be forced to do so. I suspect this is to make the proposal more palatable to professors. But professors should imagine how popular they will be with students who come to class with laptops not needed in that course.

The lease itself is described as being between the student and a 'major vendor.' The authors of this report have not been students for a quite while if they think many major vendors will give students laptops on credit. What happens if a student withdraws from the program? Do they return the laptop? Who gets stuck with the bill?

If students can't secure financing, who will help them-the university? Not likely. The Students' Finance Board? Not currently.

There are a few other drawbacks to the proposal. Do students carry loads of batteries with them, or will there be power plug-ins at every desk? Many of our lecture halls do not have sufficient space for students to comfortably type on a laptop. Imagine the noise of a hundred students typing, broken only by a loud crash and curses when a laptop falls to the floor. How will students take notes on a laptop in math, chemistry, physics or in any course that involves diagrams, equations or symbols? (That sounds like an awful lot of the engineering courses doesn't it?)

What about reliability? What happens to the student whose laptop crashes or freezes during a lecture? What happens if the software for one course wreaks havoc with other software?

What other 'advantages' do laptops have? Well their graphics are poor relative to desktops of similar price, making them poor for applications like Autocad-a program engineers use. Laptops are also more expensive and difficult to upgrade than desktops. For all of these problems, how is the learning experience enhanced? Well actually, research has shown that for most people comprehension is reduced by around 20 per cent when reading off of a computer screen as opposed to a piece of paper.

Having the cost of laptops included in the tuition fee (for the tax credit) means the Faculty of Engineering would need almost six years of the maximum allowable tuition increases. Will the public support this? If you use the money for laptops, then where are you going to find the money for salary increases or even for keeping up with inflation?

Why make laptops mandatory? What if a student already has access to a good computer at work, at home, or through a friend? Why force all students to purchase from the same vendor? Who will choose the lucky vendor? I wonder if Task Force members get free 'trial' laptops the same way that professors get free evaluation copies of textbooks?

I suspect all the supposed educational benefits of this proposal could be obtained by increasing student fees roughly $300 per academic year and directing this funding into better labs. Students would have access to better and more powerful computers than they could afford to buy individually. Of course they couldn't take them to class, but really, why would they want to?

I am not a Luddite. I even own a laptop. But I wonder how many of the members of this committee have laptops? How many have brought them to class as students? How many have created interactive, multimedia courseware? And finally, how many have student loans?

Can they really think of no better use for an extra few million dollars every year?

Why didn't they tell me in Grade 9 that I would need physics to get into architecture?" That was the plea of my high school graduating daughter who is looking for her first admission into the halls of higher learning.

Like many of Rebecca's comrades, she is sensing an ever increasing pressure to tailor her young educational career according to degree prerequisites. Almost from her elementary school onwards, specialization became a fact of life, streaming more and more young people through narrower and narrower scholastic corridors.

Concentrating our education energies on smaller and less significant pieces of the puzzle of wisdom may not be helpful, either for the short-term employability or intellectual maturity of our children. After all, corporations now recognize that work skills are an on-the-job consideration. Given that modern workers will have between three and five careers in their working life, knowing how to learn is more important than any specialized knowledge we can acquire at college.

Of course, the technical fragmentation of information has certainly been one of the motivating forces behind the trend of truncating educational options for young people. The university's propensity to carve off mini scholastic empires which create their own fields of expertise is another. (The latter fact is something for which professors will have to do many years of penance in purgatory, I imagine.)

But rather than lament how twisted and complex our educational structures have become, I want to dwell on its merits. Truncated and inadequate as a university degree might appear to be, I am still convinced by what it will offer to my daughter. No, let me be precise. I am most impressed with what she sees as its advantages.

While the distinct and discreet disciplines place restrictions on her options, she can't wait to enter into that time of her life when she is set free to study. No parents breathing down her neck, no teachers hovering and prodding from morning to late afternoon. University is the great escape from imposed education, not to mention the limitations of the parental nest.

How easily we can forget or dismiss the sheer delight that fires students as they fill out applications for their chosen course of study. It's not what they learn here so much as what the entire experience represents that is so appealing.

Imagine it. Taking four years to have the opportunity to reflect on life's greatest questions. An open spirit and an eager mind being the primary tools.

What a gift!

How many of us would like to be granted time to but enjoy the play of ideas? In religious terms, I call this a "Sabbath." Our time at university is that unique moment in our lives when we lay aside the traditional employment expectations in order to explore the pathways of the head and heart-an educational Sabbath.

I know this may sound rather naive, but there is a great beauty in the university community that escapes us as we shuffle through our tattered lecture notes or mounting administrative files.

In a competitive, consumptive culture where what you can win or purchase become the primary benchmarks of success, the university is still one of the few havens where what you think is still held in high esteem. In this place, your economic status, socialbackground, physical prowess or political clout count for little.

Sure, the specialization of wisdom is a lamentable problem, vexing young people across the country. Let us remind ourselves that we are much more than separate disciplines. The bottom line? The university offers a precious-nay priceless-gift of time. Amen!

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