When every student has a laptop, why run computer labs?
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
When every student has paper, why print books?
Even though almost everyone has a laptop here, the library / lab (wifi available) is still full with people using the local computers to study (~200 places).
But now that you mention books... I'd be really happy to get all the books I need in pdfs, so that:
1. they're searchable / bookmarkable
2. I can print out those 2 pages I really need and not carry the whole thing around
Most schools I'm familiar with also let you set up X forwarding/RDP/citrix to their fancy cluster so you can get any app you need without installing it.
Log in, search gigapedia.org, click the "links" tab.
Download that book, enjoy.
Yes, you are right today. Give me four years and ask your question again.
(I'm skipping the issues of DRM. I suggest we not wander down that rabbit hole. I'm just talking technical questions.)
Likewise, a library, a bookstore, and a bookshelf are specific environments that could never be replaced by e-books ---even if / when society collectively concludes that e-books are a superior and preferred medium for consuming book-like content.
Actually, that might be more expensive
If you're stuck, you can talk to your neighbor. Maybe they're stuck too.
Unlike some other posters, I found it <i>harder</i> to get things done in the lab, because of the socialization. But it's a totally different experience to work on a project in the lab than at home alone or with a small group of people you know. It's much more like my experiences at work with an open floor, with people walking around and talking to each other.
[Edit: Ehh, how do you make things italic? I'll have to look that up.]
Maybe they're not and will look at you as if you're a worm that crawled out of a spaceship. Or stare at the floor and not answer your question.
(My experiences asking peers for help in labs haven't been positive. But I love the quietness and ability to work undistracted.)
However, they could perhaps shrink the size of the labs; there were rooms with 50 or 60 PCs all switched on, wasting energy displaying that immensely irritating advertising screensaver and two or three of us working in them. Perhaps they could even go as far as to close labs and provide students with laptops with required study software pre-installed, but that's cloud-cuckoo land stuff...
I didn't have my own laptop most of the time I was an undergrad, and although students these days tend to have them rather than desktops, I don't see that many carrying them around/taking them to lectures/tutorials. Certainly if a student I taught whipped out their laptop I'd be amazed.
I was taught computer science at a fairly 'traditional' institution where we learned from OHPs, Powerpoint and printed notes rather than live code demos that you could type out on your laptop and play with while the lecturer was talking. (I recently went to a tutorial day that was run like this and it was amazing; I'm not necessarily advocating learning to code on paper, but it does help you pass exams where you have to write code on paper..)
Anyway, without computer labs many people out and about on campus wouldn't have e-mail or 'net access, and as others have pointed out it let us run a pretty complex setup for teaching (ML and Java through some insane whacked-out emacs customisation; to this day I use vim as a result of that teaching). I guess the general 'labs as somewhere the general student body goes to write essays aren't needed' applies, but a nice quiet room full of the sound of people typing is a great environment to get work done, and at least at the universities I'm familiar with in the UK, there's not much room for laptops. Plus laptops have distractions on, and lab machines don't.
Did you get free printer access? That is unfair - we had to pay for everything - bandwidth and printer access.
Standardization. Dedicated labs provide the assurance that every student has the ability to use the same software on the same platform.
Software Licensing. Even if you could assume that all student were running the same OS / hardware platform, you'd still have to make necessary software available to all of them, which would be a licensing nightmare.
Laptop use works for very general purpose / light-duty work, which is what many college students do. So I could see the argument for making certain areas more laptop-centric (such as libraries). But at most unis, there will always be enough demand from those in more "hardcore" majors that getting rid of labs in general won't work. In fact, I've actually seen an upswing in lab use due to students buying netbooks.
i have a laptop now and, working from home on my bed, think it's great.
the downside of laptops is that with greater power (and convenience) comes greater responsibility (and self-restraint).
* laptops are too often used for multitasking to the detriment of the work or social meeting at hand. doing homework while watching tv is less productive/enjoyable than taking each in turn. engaging with people who are alert in the world is easier than engaging with those who are working (or when not engaged with work).
* laptops make it easy to get into a groove and not leave until the wee hours...which is good as long as you're getting work done.
onwards with technology! let's also encourage thoughtful behavior, too.
What really surprises me is that only six out of over three thousand freshman ran Linux. Weak sauce! I guess coming from Carnegie Mellon University I'm used to a higher level of techno-centrism.
Plus you need all the right software.