Sunday, September 18, 2005
What's a Poor Luddite to Do?
Where was I? Ah yes, the joys of laptopping exams. See, in the olden days, when you used writing implements to scrawl semi legible-responses in lined booklets, your biggest fear was that you might run out of ink. The simple solution was to bring into the testing room 2, 5, or 43 pens, depending on your level of psychosis.
But using a laptop introduces a whole new set of angsts. What if your machine breaks down in the middle of a discussion about the effect of federal preemption clauses on torts litigation? Or you knock the thing over and shatter your LCD screen? Or the letter E mysteriously stops working? Or you click "Save" at the end of the exam, only it turns out it was actually "Delete"?
Taking a spare laptop or two into an exam is probably impractical, not to mention seriously nerdy. My proposed solution: bring a printer along, so that you can print your answers as you go. But what if the printer breaks down? And how many ink cartridges are warranted?
My head hurts. Time for bed.
-LSD
But using a laptop introduces a whole new set of angsts. What if your machine breaks down in the middle of a discussion about the effect of federal preemption clauses on torts litigation? Or you knock the thing over and shatter your LCD screen? Or the letter E mysteriously stops working? Or you click "Save" at the end of the exam, only it turns out it was actually "Delete"?
Taking a spare laptop or two into an exam is probably impractical, not to mention seriously nerdy. My proposed solution: bring a printer along, so that you can print your answers as you go. But what if the printer breaks down? And how many ink cartridges are warranted?
My head hurts. Time for bed.
-LSD
# posted by goldstar @ 11:50 PM 
