According to Jon Bower, president of It's Learning, Inc, the Netbook is the next big thing to arrive in education. Due to cost, weight, and cloud computing more and more students can have access to one-to-one computing. With Netbooks the price is right, the weight is right, and basic learning functions can be performed.
The down side is that screen size could hamper some student progress and video, the most popular student application, is limited with the media capacity of a Netbook.
Bower's point is that we need to evaluate our student's educational needs before jumping on the latest bandwagon related to technology.
He has a point: the ponies comes before the wagon and not the other way around. Yet, H1N1 has forced educators to think about a delivery mechanism of education for large numbers of students who have to be 'quarantined' for two weeks or more. In case of an epidemic outbreak social networking will serve educators well and a product such as a Netbook can do miracles.
However students who attend on-line schooling will certainly find the Netbook inadequate. Viewing content on a screen smaller than 10 inches during a regular school day is difficult and the thought of creating large video files is none-existent.
If the goal is to make every student computer literate to have the competitive edge in a global economy then any computer is suffice to learn more than the basics. In such a case the Netbook is ideal for a host of applications. It will be a huge advantage above many professional teachers today who are still computer illiterate.
Bower's point is taken but the time has arrived to level the playing field for all students to have a computer, not just those in affluent schools or neighborhoods. The Netbook might just be the answer.
Michael Cordier
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