CosmonautIn class today we tried out the iPad styluses. We tried the Bamboo, the Amazon Basics, and the Cosmonaut. I liked the Bamboo the best because it felt more like a pencil. I didn’t like the Amazon Basics because the flap kept bugging my work. I liked the Cosmonaut because it was good for drawing but it was too big to write with. That is why I liked the Bamboo the best.
On the iPad there are many fun things to do. The thing I am going to talk about is an app called Skitch. Skitch is an app that is also on the laptops and the other Apple computers. I use Skitch for drawing, especially for my history comic that I am doing. The book that I’m reading is called The Ghost of Tokaido Inn. I am using Skitch and Comic Life, the program Finn is using for Finnotopia, to do my history comic. I also draw basketball strategy on it. That is how I use skitch.
After a couple of months of using these computer I have got my official opinion on it. It’s useful. BUT, I don’t use it very much. That’s one of the problems. I don’t use my MacBook because I have a newer Dell at my house so I prefer to use my Dell. My MacBook has come in handy though, because I sometimes have to get information from the Internet. That is why next year it would be a huge help if we had computers because then you can look up all the information you need in school and around the clock. Surprisingly I have not become dependent on my computer which I thought would happen but that’s only for me, it might me different for other people. Also at the same time there an iPad pilot program going on. Personally since I have used an iPad before I think it will be harder to move documents around and know where your stuff is. Still, iPads have some really nifty applications that are quite useful. In the end though I personally think that for MOST people, it would be better to have a laptop than a iPad. Still if that happens we should still stay with the traditional ways of studying and we should not try to do everything on our laptops or iPads.
I 100% support the pilot program. On my laptop I have been able to save myself. For example, when I forget my planner at school I can access my homework using a program called Evernote. At home my laptop is a help, but a distraction. I help myself by having my homework, and programs on it, but I distract myself by playing games. Overall it has been taking me longer to do my homework, but I have been doing it efficiently. It takes a lot of time to log in and pull up all of the needed applications and documents. The laptop is awesome for things outside of school like skypeing my friends from sleep-away camp, as well as my family and my baby cousin. I dislike the iPad, because it is easier to break. I believe that the iPad is much more of a distraction than the laptop, but both can be a distraction. I believe that we should use technology more often in class, and it is a useful tool. I asked my dad if he could’ve had a laptop when he was in school and he said, “Totally.” 
Picture from Wikimedia Commons
I am feeling much better now than I was at the beginning of the pilot program. I now get on the laptop I was issued every day. I have slowly warmed up to blogging on this website. It has become almost an obsession. I just love posting on the blog. In our Spanish class people almost every day take notes on their computer for the Moodle page. We have a class notes page where people post what we did in class that day. In History today many of us typed our paragraphs on our computer. This saves time and you can write much quicker. This is very helpful when you want to be productive. Language Arts and History are usually the only subjects that I use my laptop for, but I could conceive of using it in Spanish and Science as well. Overall, so far, the laptops have been very useful to me, both with schoolwork and homework.
We have had our laptops for a while now and have encountered a few problems. One is that people are losing track of them. When the time comes for use of the laptops, a few people get mixed up. On the other hand, when I get home I immediately open up my laptop and plug it in. It reduces homework time by a lot because instead of having to go down to the kitchen and power up our PC which doesn’t have all the software I need I can use my laptop. When I open up the laptop I go to whatever application I need. Whether it be Pages, Safari, Chrome, Comic Life or Evernote. Overall the laptop program is going smoothly.
From flickrcc.