Microsoft designs Philly high school

[Harry Seldon]

Most high tech devices use recharable li-ion batteries which can lost quite a long time. My portable MP3 player lasts 11-12 hours (20GB HD-based), my laptop (1.5GHz Pentium M, 768MB RAM) lasts around 7 hours.

All of the "virtual" textbooks I've seen proposed are variations of tablet PCs, with li-ion batteries...

You're also talking about a school system. Proposed is great in concept but I'd wait to see wait they actually buy. My work's loaner laptop is lucky to get a few hours under normal stress.

If the power is out for 60 minutes or longer, you're not doing much in school, period. Technology or not.

We lost power for long periods of time in school and we managed. Our principal wasn't sending us home and adding a day to the end of the school year. Once again, windows were key.

My high school libraries have never had Windows, and I doubt most have sufficient lighting anyway. Not to mention most libraries are computerized, anyway.

Where did you go to school, a dungeon? Maybe your libraries we electronic but mine had row after glorious row of books and that was eight years ago. Have schools changed that much? And if you mean card catalogs and book searches, our librarians had a good enough understanding of the dewey decimal system to at least get you close to what you were looking for.

Anything else?

[Kuciwalker]

computerized library != books on computer

computerized library = library with computer catalog

card catalog = stupid

[Buck Birdseed]

That souds unlikely, don't all libraries have computer catalogues these days?

[Kuciwalker]

Yes. They have for a long time.