There is an inter­est­ing essay in the March 2007 issue of The Ros­trum titled “On the Brink of Being Elite…Or Obso­lete?” by Rami Her­nan­dez from Loy­ola High School of Los Ange­les. The arti­cle advo­cates the use of com­put­ers in speech and debate com­pe­ti­tions. Actu­ally, the arti­cle argues that the activ­ity risks becom­ing irrel­e­vant to today’s youth if we don’t include the use of computers.

I read the arti­cle dur­ing lunch ear­lier in the week and I was going to write about it, but the folks at Vic­tory Briefs Daily beat me to it and there have been a num­ber of com­ments posted. Ear­lier today Jim Menick at Coachean Life weighed in with his take on the article.

Lap­tops have dropped in price and they are becom­ing com­mon on col­lege cam­puses, but I’m not sure that lap­tops are that wide­spread at the high school level. Do your tour­na­ment sites have open wifi access? If peo­ple need to have 3G access to make use of lap­tops at tour­na­ments, there is going to con­tinue to be a wide gulf between the “haves” and “have nots”.

What do you think?

Pre­vi­ous entries on com­put­ers and debate:

• Lap­top Com­put­ers and High School Debate
• Follow-up: Lap­top Com­put­ers and Debate
• Arti­cles of Inter­est in The Ros­trum