I just want to know how these gizmos help you. Is this a trend nowadays in use by students in schools especially universities? I just wanna know because here in the Philippines, only first class university students use this. In our university, which is a state university, subsidized our tuition and other fees by the government and some companies, don't seem to be a usual sight of someone using a PDA or a laptop. I am a computer engineering student but I can't afford to buy either of the two but I have a desktop PC in our house. I wanna know how advanced your universities/school are and how techy students are in your respective countries. Thank you for your opinions.
Hi! In my university, many students use laptops (I'm studying Computer Science). And since we have our own wireless network there (w/ internet access, of course), one can be even more mobile. I, for myself, wouldn't spend the money on a laptop, but I must admit, that it's very useful and in the exams period (~1 month) it can be a real life-saver. How exactly useful? Well, imagine, you're sitting in a boring class. Hmm? Could get my next weeks homework done... or work on a exam or... whatever. Some students use dual-booting laptops w/ windows and linux on them. also, for classes. As for PDAs. Personally, I've seen only 1 student wawing a thing like that around. But I think that a laptop, a sheet of paper and a pen do the trick as well... at least for the average student anyways.
Do the use of PDA's and laptops common to universities in your respective countri I'm in college (go to college before university) and I sue my laptop sometimes during Computing classes. I usually do this because the computers running Windows don't support advanced programming in a unix like environment, so I have to bring my laptop in running Linux. However, I don't use it for any other classes. Matt555 from this forum uses his laptop for university. How much I don't know.
Do the use of PDA's and laptops common to universities in your respective countri Indeed I do! I use it so much, I have a triple-boot laptop, (specs are in my computer) with XPH SP2, Vista RC1 (The worst excuse for an OS I have ever seen) and my primary OS Kubuntu 6.06. I also have a PDA and if I wanted I could register my PSP on the Uni network and use that for web-browsing. I use my laptop all the time, I have it with me in all my lectures, tutorials, lab sessions etc - it's so useful as our learning materials are on a "Virtual Learning Environment" on the Internet. Go into a class / tutorial / lab / lecture etc and connect to the Wireless network in the building, then just log in and get all the materials needed on your laptop / device etc, it's really useful! The use of laptops can be common, in my classes not many people have laptops (that I know of, I've only ever seen about 10-15 in a lecture of say 130-150 people) so whether it's because they choose not to take them or whether they don't have them I'm not sure. PS - I'm studying 'Internet Computing' at De Montfort University in Leicester if anyone's interested - it's very very close to Computer Science, but we can specialise in Network stuff later on I think.
Thank you for your replies. Here in our university(Polytechnic University of the Philippines), we don't have the one you called "Virtual Learning Environment". I am so much disappointed of our education system here because it does not help students. Our facilities are not high tech, some are even old enough that it become useless. Our computer labs have very low specs PC's but they are upgrading somehow. We even don't have wireless networks in our university. They still using the old fashioned wired networks that is hanging in ceilings. How I wish I can study in other countries that have high tech facilities and is conducive to learning. How I wish I am as rich as you to buy those kind of stuffs that I really need to help me in my studies. I wish the administrators of my university do something to even just equate with other state universities around the world because we are very far behind. I wish we have lectures, class, laboratory manuals, etc. in our website. You know now how poor we are here and how poor are our state universities here. If only I have given a chance to study abroad so that after I graduate, I will come back here in the Philippines and help our universities to advance in terms of technology and competency. Thanks for your listening and replies. I really appreciate all of you. By the way, may I ask, do you still use books as reference or you just use the internet to look up these information?
I feel sorry for your situation, kaelo8. It's sad, really sad. Anyways, about the books. Well, I, personally, prefer the internet for information searching. But I've seen many students running around with c++, CSS, HTML, math books ez. And especially in math I've found that nothing's better than a nice book.
Agreed, I learn much better from a book than from internet resources from a screen. If you were living in an EU, you can travel abroad to study in any other EU country as if you were a student living there. It's a shame about the education system in your country, our's are not necessarily "rich" as such. Our secondary education institutes are poor (well, I admit mine was poor, may not everyone else). Universities now charge students per year for tuition fees, and so many take out student loans (no interest, only increases in line with inflation) and pay it back when they earn over a certain threshold. I use the internet a lot to help with queries, but if I want to learn about a specific topic in detail, e.g. a programming language or a library then I will buy a book written by a professional.
