Ryan McLaughlin
Eighth-Grade Student, Harpeth Hall School
I really enjoy having my own personal laptop computer. I think it makes learning more fun and forces me to be a more organized learner. Having access to a computer all the time makes working on homework and doing projects easier. I never have to rush around in my free time to find a computer that is available. I never have to spend time looking for missing notes because they are always on my hard drive. It makes for a much easier and more enjoyable learning experience.
My favorite project this year, using my laptop, was in my math class. For a quarter of the school year we recorded how certain stocks did in the market. Every day, in our free time, we would use the Internet to check our stocks' progress. Then we would use Microsoft Excel to make an organized chart displaying our data. I really enjoyed this because my father is a stock broker so I not only learned how to use programs on my computer, but also got to see what my dad does every day. Having my own laptop computer made it easy to look up the stocks in my free time and record them as needed. We also were required to make a PowerPoint presentation, and having my own computer allowed me to work on that at school and at home.
Click on a link below to move on to comments from another student or to return to previous pages in the article.
Reading Online, www.readingonline.org
Posted February 2002
© 2002 International Reading Association, Inc. ISSN 1096-1232