By Veronica Claussen, Dakota Valley High School, North Sioux, South Dakota

With the technology we have today, soon- to-be college students have to make the decision to spend their money on either a laptop or an iPad for classes.  Even though the iPad is really cool and is lightweight, many students would rather use a laptop.

Senior, Katie Heller, would rather use a laptop instead of an iPad because to her it would be more of a toy than a learning tool.

“I would use a laptop for classes because I would use the iPad for playing with,” said Heller

Paul Steinhaus, a professor at Chatham University tested the use of iPad for their classes.  Even though they saw many good uses for it, the cons outnumbered the pros.

“I’d hate to charge students and have them only be able to use it for e-mail and Facebook,” said Mr. Steinhaus from an article from “The Chronicle” by Ben Wieder.

There are some high schools that already provide laptops for students so the students are more used to using laptops than iPads.

“I just like having a laptop in general.  I didn’t have one at my old school and it is nice to use one for school and home,” said Heller.

Some students agree that it is easier to type notes with a physical keyboard which is attached to the laptop instead of trying to type on a touch screen or paying extra for a keyboard to hook up with the iPad.

Almost every student needs some kind of electronic device for classes because they are so used to using technology for everything.  It would be hard for some to go back to paper and pencil.

“[Using paper and pencil] takes too long and you have to write so fast you can’t read what you wrote later on. It is much faster and more convenient to use computers,” said Junior Lois Bauler.

Senior Nichole Waugh plans to use a laptop to help her with essays and to look up information she doesn’t know herself and this is what most students currently do.

“I can write essays and look up information I don’t know [with a laptop],” said Waugh.

I personally would use both because I could use one if the other doesn’t work and it would be easier to back up files.  For classes though I would usually use my iPad because it is lighter and easier to use.  Since I have been using touch screens for a while I think it would be just as easy to type on the iPad than on a laptop.