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Comment by skizm | Hacker News Reader

I don't know any high schools that allow laptops in normal classes. This is in the tri-state area at least (NJ/NY/PA) where I know a bunch of people who are teachers. Maybe the rest of the country it's common for high school students to be allowed laptops in class?

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Some districts in NJ have a 1 to 1 policy where students are all given a chromebooks at the start of the year. Teachers who can utilize this policy and google classroom love it because it off-loads the grading to a program and not a piece of paper.

In the same area, both my hometown and the district I attended had 1:1 Chromebook policies. They also had Orwelian programs to allow teachers to see what was on student's screens (!) and later a list of recently closed tabs (!!).

I think as a child your mind is pretty easily distracted ( looking at you IT classes of my time where 90% + of the class would be sneaking on miniclip every time a teachers back was turned )

It's pretty essential if we're going to have those connected devices in the classroom there is a way to control it.

I would prefer rigorous blocking over teacher control - but reasonably I think it's kind of necessity in a classroom setting.

In north Chicago suburbs, my 1st grader gets an iPad, and my 3rd and 5th graders have chromebooks. All communication is through school apps, and much of the work is done on those. They use them for homework, and spend much of the day on them. I hate it.

I have 3 kids in middle and high school in West Windsor NJ. The school gives each student a chromebook or you can bring your own (I believe BYOD that is only allowed in high school).. everything is done through google classroom + printed handouts....

I'm in the same area, my kids don't have their own laptops or chomebooks for use in class. There are a half dozen desktop computers in the classroom and students rotate using them for some educational games, but the normal work is not computer-mediated.

Really? Around here (rural Minnesota, in a rural school district), probably 80% of schoolwork is done on a Chromebook, at least in the final years of high school. I'm amazed by how much lighter my kid's backpack got in 11th grade.

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