S21 had two summer reading assignments for AP Lang,…the first one was “Thank You For Arguing” by Jay Heinrichs and then a choice of 3 other books. For their chosen book , they had to make connections to the assigned common book. S21 came home today and said that they were given a 2 week extension for the kids who didn’t do the reading over the summer.
Wow - they gave an extension in an AP class??
@NJWrestlingmom I guess so…not sure if that was the timeline all along or if a true concession was given…my son finished all his reading and was done with it two weeks ago.
@Mom0f3B - Your son should be annoyed that he did the work and others didn’t - without penalty. Used to happen to S21 in some lower level Honors classes, but not AP. Not sure the teacher is preparing them well for college.
D21 finally has her actual schedule! We have been working with her dean on a bunch of things and he just wasn’t being helpful at all. He was new last year and doesn’t seem to know what he is doing as much as our old dean. It got to the pint that I had to email the principal which I have never done, but it worked! She asked D to come in this morning and within minutes had given her every class she needed.
Journalism 3 Honors (newspaper - Entertainment Editor)
AICE Sociology
Pre Calc Honors
Chemistry Honors
AP Eng Lang
AP US History
Spanish 3 (online)
She is so relieved - she was stressing out because she spent two days in classes she did not need and they were about to have tests tomorrow!
Our school does not require Physics and I don’t think D21 will take it - D19 did not take it and still got into every school she applied to including more selective ones such as Tulane and Boston College. I am sure it would be more important at Top 20 schools but we knew she was not targeting those schools.
Hey all - just a general HS question for everyone. I’m just curious as to what extent your school uses technology as a replacement for paper/pens and books. My kids’ High School is an iPad school - all textbooks and most assignments are completed and turned in electronically. I think many tests are still on paper, but I could be wrong about that since I never see the actual tests. I figure college must be similar these days - yes?
@3kids2dogs I don’t think so. I think S19 at Bowdoin will have old timey paper books. When we visited colleges last year, the bookstores had tons of textbooks. At our high school, the kids do have chromebooks to do work and to turn papers in but D21 has a textbook for every subject. Pre-calc has an option to use the online textbook but, in the past, those have been glitchy so D21 just wanted the hard copy textbook.
@3kids2dogs And a lot has been written about how taking notes by hand is better for learning than typing. Our kids still really mark up and annotate their textbooks. My husband works in higher ed and the online textbook thing really isn’t taking off like publishers were thinking it would.
@homerdog - Really; that’s so interesting. My daughter hasn’t had a paper textbook in her entire high school career. I have a S23 who started freshman year today and he said he felt like he was forgetting a bunch of stuff because his backpack was so light. They had Chromebooks in junior high, but the iPads are so much smaller/lighter.
@3kids2dogs How do they read everything online? Do they still highlight and take notes on the screen? My kids would freak. Lol.
How would you characterize your high school? Is it private? We are at a large public but it’s highly ranked in the state. 98% of the kids go to four year colleges. Top 50 kids typically at top 20-ranked colleges - Ivies, etc.
Mine seem to have a mix and when they have textbooks, they don’t go back-and-forth to school, it stays home and there is also one available in the classroom. Novels are always print versions. The school will provide them but we’re also encouraged to purchase our own copies to the kids can write notes in the book. Papers are all written and submitted online. The school provides MacBooks to all the kids
We are a mix also. A few years ago they started issuing chromebooks to all students, D21 was not included in that. A lot of her assignments are done in google docs, they all have school assigned gmails. She has a mix of actual textbooks and online books.
Yes - all online. I’m 99% sure there is a way to highlight the textbook, but I also see my daughter with split screens - taking notes on half the iPad, reading on the other half. I think everything is in a google drive, but I’ve never paid that close attention. She has bought a couple paperback novels, but that was her choice, the ebook versions come with the “curriculum fee” we pay to the district. I also remember her having a composition notebook for Chemistry last year. I think it was required by her teacher for lab data -I’m not sure, but I think that was the only paper notebook she had. She does create flashcards on her own for studying purposes (Spanish and Euro last year)
Most notes are taken on her iPad - she can handwrite just like in a notebook, so no keyboard needed, though an Apple pencil is almost a necessity. There’s an option to change it all to typed text or keep it as handwritten. She usually keeps hers handwritten. She changes the text color of her notes in various ways that make sense to her. Sometimes she prints some notes and they look like quite the rainbow.
Her school is public - @2,500 students. Ranked pretty high (It bounces around from about 19-21 in the state, US news has it in the lowish 400’s for the nation). I don’t know the stats on college (there’s always a couple of Ivy league kids, but I’m guessing most are athletes, and other T20 schools, but lots more who go to non Top20 schools), but it’s nowhere near 98% at a 4 year. The school pulls from two junior highs - my children’s school which is probably considered middle to upper middle class and another school that would be considered middle to lower middle class, lots of first generation Americans. Maybe for the kids from my children’s junior high, 98% go to four year college, but there’s a pretty big list of kids who, for financial/family reasons attend the local community college for two years and then hopefully transfer to a four year college to finish their degree.
My daughter got a Rocketbook for this year and is excited to use it. She writes on special pages with special pens and then scans a QR code on the sheet and it puts it into her google docs. She will now only need 1 notebook Incase a teacher needs her to hand something in that day in class.
My daughter got a Rocketbook for Christmas last year.
S17’s school went to ipads when he was a freshman. Any texts were left in class or at home and everything was on the ipad. Almost all assignments turned in on the ipad. It actually worked for him because he wasn’t a great student and it made it much easier for him to not forget stuff at home (except when he forgot the entire ipad!!).
Small public, maybe 750 kids. Not well ranked, but pretty good college placements every year (a lot of D3 athletes).
D21 is at a large (2500) nationally ranked public - no electronics at all. Good old textbooks. Although most kids have Macbooks, many teachers don’t allow them to take notes on them.
S17 is now at a state college. Some online texts (which we both hate - not user friendly and expensive), but mostly physical books. Many professors post online what’s needed to be read so kids don’t have to buy too many books.
^^ My daughter would be envious! Though some assignments and supplemental reading are online, she has heavy textbooks and a different binder for each class. Her AP World binder last year was 4 inches thick and stuffed full! Not only that, the lockers are too small to hold it all (plus only a couple of minutes between classes) so she’s lugging this stuff all day long from class to class. Usually she cannot zip her 20+ pound backpack when she comes home every day. Add to that a trombone with a heavy case and you’ve got a 5’1" girl with an aching back a lot of the time 
@inthegarden same here. We got the kids the biggest North Face backpack there is and, still, they can barely fit everything they need. Spiral notebooks and folders for each class. Some of the textbooks for every day but definitely not all. Lunch has to be carried separately since it doesn’t fit! And no one ever uses their lockers so they carry their bags full all day long.
Top 20 public in state. Chromebooks since 6th grade. Everything done online with google classroom.
No way our school district can afford all the electronics…it can barely fund the minimum (small town in a rural area). Textbooks cannot be highlighted/written in because they have to last for a few years. But we DO have a beautiful new high school (thanks to a lot of outside funding) so that’s something…
…But I do agree with @homerdog that hand writing does something to the brain to help retain information…plus just the coordination exercise it gives…guess I’m old-fashioned in that way. I think it’s good for young people to retain some of the basic skills.