Unpredictable. Unfocused. Just like life.

A great post at Presentation Zen asks "is a computer like a bicycle for the mind?"

There's no question that a kid and a laptop *can* be a very good thing, but does time spent with an app like PowerPoint as a sixth-grader make it more likely that when the student is, say, 25 she'll be a better thinker and a better presenter, especially when the electricity goes off and she's left with nothing but a whiteboard and some pens? Or think of it this way: does a personal laptop in the school function as a bicycle for the mind, amplifying the student's own capabilities and new knowledge or is it more like a car with pre-packaged formulas that allow the student to become soft in the head while appearing to really go places?

I think that the kid is probably better off with a piece of paper and a box of colored pencils than a laptop. A computer and a particular set of applications merely impose limitations on the user. There are only certain fonts, certain colors, certain templates, and seemingly certain limited ways to do things.

The laptop doesn't make you a better thinker; in fact it limits how you think based on the limitations of the machine. Like calculators years ago, it may free the student from the need to do repetitive operations like addition. Or it may make it easier to format a report than it would be with a typewriter. It makes it easier to do things that you already know how to do. But without specific tools it doesn't help you learn, or increase your creativity.

A blank piece of paper and colored pencils allow ultimate creativity by introducing no limitations. And a person that uses their mind and that sheet of paper to convey an idea will be a better thinker, and probably a better presenter too.