PFDebate

Laptop Computers and High School Debate

by PFDebate LLC on October 7, 2006

There is an inter­est­ing dis­cus­sion over at Wis­con­sin Foren­sics Daily con­cern­ing whether or not lap­tops should be allowed in high school debate rounds.

In col­lege debate, lap­tops are com­mon place. Debaters use them for research, brief writ­ing, flow­ing, etc. Most col­leges have wifi that com­peti­tors can access dur­ing the tour­na­ment, but I sus­pect that wifi, let alone open wifi, is rare in high schools.

What do you think? You can view in our new online poll on the lower right hand side of the page. You can also explain your posi­tion in the comments.

{ 1 trackback }

Elite or Obsolete? | PFDebate Blog
March 8, 2007 at 11:26 pm

{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }

snakes on my plane October 7, 2006 at 3:16 pm

tons of peo­ple had lap­tops at nation­als, since there was wifi

PFdebate LLC October 7, 2006 at 3:19 pm

Yes, but under the cur­rent rules, you can­not use a com­puter dur­ing a debate round. Should debaters be allowed to use com­put­ers dur­ing debate rounds?

Jason October 8, 2006 at 7:31 am

If we wish to make debate even more elit­ist and less acces­si­ble to dis­ad­van­taged stu­dents, we should push for lap­tops in rounds.

Noah October 8, 2006 at 3:59 pm

they should be allowed, they offer no unfair advantage.

Samantha October 8, 2006 at 6:08 pm

Noah, how do they not offer an unfair advantage?

Many peo­ple can’t afford to buy lap­tops to use in a debate round. Say­ing there’s no unfair advan­tage assumes that every debater would be able to get one.

Another rea­son we shouldn’t be able to use them is because they’re fairly dis­rup­tive to a per­son giv­ing the speech. Imag­ine a judge try­ing to hear you while three peo­ple are typ­ing quickly on their keyboards.

The two min­utes prep time avail­able for each team also doesn’t allow much time to make much use out of the laptops.

And lastly, why are we given a month to research if we’re just going to find all our research dur­ing the round?

Robert January 28, 2008 at 2:51 pm

Com­puter are def­i­nitely a com­mon place in our soci­ety, and quite frankly the stan­dard debate for­mat needs to be updated.
Over­all, they are no doubt a very use­ful tool, but on the flip side I don’t approve of the notion of research­ing dur­ing a round. Just some thoughts…

Neil November 13, 2009 at 11:09 pm

Com­put­ers aren’t elit­ist, and any­one who wants one bad enough can get one. They also offer no advan­tage in round.

I don’t want peo­ple research­ing dur­ing rounds, of course.

Leave a Comment

Copyright © 2009 PFDebate LLC