It saves so much time that otherwise would have been spent traveling. If you and a partner are working together, or you just wanted to know what a friend wrote for question 3, downloading the information from him or her is quick and easy. What some people may not know is the fact that using the appropriate software, two people can work on the same document at the same time over a modem. In fact, new modems will be able to transmit voice and data over one line, at the same time. Imagine being able to talk directly to the person you are working with through the computer, while you co-operate on a project.
Scanners also provide some neat ways of increasing student efficiency.
Did you know that you can actually scan a page from a book or magazine, and have it converted directly into an editable text format, that can manipulated in a standard word processor. I've used this technique a number of times to enter lengthy tables and data into Excel instead of doing it by hand. I've also used a scanner to quickly scan and convert a long quotation, rather than manually keying in the text. Another interesting new technology is translation software. This type of program can translate a document written in one language, to a fairly legible and understandable equivalent in another.