Secondary school students should be allowed laptops at school.

I would like to expand on some of my arguments from round 1: 1. If somebody spills water on their laptop, then that is entirely their own fault. That sort of thing is extremely rare anyway, and students should always place their waterbottles away from their laptop (e. g. on the floor or in their bag). What you said about people not being organised is true, but laptops make it easier for people to be organised. It is easier to keep everything in a few computerised folders than taking the time to place many bundles of sheets in many real folders. Also, students can merely search the name up of the file they were using and it would appear up on the screen. 2. Students choose what sort of books they buy, and not all of them are going to buy recycled paper notebooks. And even if other sources also use paper, students using laptops will still save a lot (if you consider how many people are enrolled at a secondary school). 3. Not all schools have all lockers. My school does, but they are very small so you cannot fit that much stuff in it. Laptops can store so much more than lockers can, and you have all of your notes with you at once. You can take your laptop home, and choose what you want to study for tests/exams/assignments. Anyway, lockers can be broken into (this is actually extremely easy to do at my school) so people's things can easily be taken. Now to my rebuttals: 1. Yes, not all parents do have the money to buy their children laptops. But this is not the only way to provide them with laptops: at my high school, students are given a laptop by the school when they first start at the school (if they damage/break it, the student has to pay). They then return the laptop to the school when they graduate/leave the school. Schools are funded by the government to obtain these laptops to give to students. 2. If there is a computer virus they can get it fixed at the IT office for free (this has happened to some of my friends). Viruses are very rare anyway, and also if you have a Macbook (which my school encourages) the chances of having a virus on your laptop are close to nothing. Teachers also write their grades down by hand before putting it into the computer and they give this gradebook to the administration, so the admin can check that all of the grades are correct. 3. For starters, if somebody copies someone else's assignment at all, they will be caught and will be disciplined. If the students are lazy, then do you really think it will make a difference if they have laptops or not? If they did not have laptops, they can still easily get their fellow students to write another assignment for them (these are bullies we are talking about after all). It is not the laptops which cause students to be lazy, but rather the students themselves. 4. Teachers are taught by the IT people as to how to use any necessary technology. And anyway, who said that the teachers need laptops? For example in my maths class, we all have the textbook as a PDF file on my macbook, while my teacher has a PDF file on his desktop (which he was taught how to use) and he also has a hardcopy of the textbook. Now onto my arguments 1. In a world which is ruled by technology, students at a high school age should be allowed laptops to get them used to working on a computer on a very regular basis. 2. One thing which many people say is that school children will play games or do other things which are inappropriate (such as watch movies) if they have access to a laptop. I cannot deny this fact; it happens at my school all the time. But this should also be considered: not everybody at school is going to be doing inappropriate things on their computers: only the students who are not really motivated to learn will be using their laptops for inappropriate things at school. If they do not have laptops, do you really think that they will be learning more? Of course not. They will find other distractions, such as talking to their friends, and still not listen to the teacher. I have first hand experience with this: in one of my classes, we are allowed laptops, and all of the unmotivated kids play games while others listen to the teacher and do what they are told to. In another class, we are not allowed laptops, and the unmotivated kids still don"t listen to the teacher. Having laptops aren"t going to make a difference to whether a student is distracted or not. 3. It makes taking notes easier. People can choose whether to take notes by hand or by laptop, but a lot of people have a preference for taking notes on their laptop. People can type faster than they write, and this is very useful when the teacher is explaining things very quickly. It also guarantees that the writing is legible: sometimes, people who handwrite notes write so fast that they can't even read their writing, but if they use a laptop, they will always be able to read Times New Roman or Arial. Teachers can also send notes online to us, which we can access easily with a laptop at school. This is especially useful if we are sick on a day.