It wasn’t all that long ago that the most weighty decision a student had to make when choosing back-to-school supplies was whether to choose the Star Wars or Muppets lunch box.  With the arrival of the digital age, all that has changed. Today’s students are now going back to school with technology.  Walk around any campus today, and you will see students toting cell phones, iPods and laptops.  Even the younger students are high-tech savvy, and it seems new devices arrive everyday promising to make the student’s life easier.

It has almost become de rigueur for the student to have a cell phone.  Many colleges no longer have landlines in the dorms, making a cellular phone essential for keeping in touch.  When shopping for cell phone service, make sure the school where your child attends has service coverage that is compatible with the service of other family members with whom they will be calling and text messaging. 

Unfortunately, as the shooting a Virginia Tech this past spring attest, cell phones provide another purpose other than for keeping in touch.  They are also a security device. Today’s parents feel that a cell phone is essential to their college student’s safety.  The thousands of text messages and calls that occurred during and after the massacre proved that cell phones are an invaluable tool for easing worried minds. 

Most high school students also find cell phones an essential back-to-school item. They help to keep the parent informed as to the whereabouts of their mobile offspring and to keep the student connected to their friends.  When cell phones first began to proliferate in high schools, many schools prohibited them, but now most schools have relaxed their policies a bit, allowing phones in school, but turned off during class time.

Even the youngest students are going cellular.  Phones like the Firefly were designed with the very young child in mind.  It has two programmable buttons on the front—one the picture of a man and the other a woman—to make it easy to connect with dad and mom.  It also has a phone book that can hold 20 more phone numbers, and parents can block incoming calls from numbers not in the phone book.

Nearly every college student heads off to school these days with a personal computer.  The big question when it comes to choosing a computer is: laptop or desktop?  With the availability of wireless service becoming more widespread, many students are opting for the more portable laptop.  Not only are computers essential for coursework, but they also function as entertainment centers for students.  Students watch DVDs and listen to their favorite music on them. 

While not essential to learning, iPods can be found in many a backpack these days.  They provide a way for the busy student to relax by listening to music.

And don’t look for the trend toward technology in school to dissipate any time soon.  In fact, look for more technology.  While not as ubiquitous as computers, cell phones and iPods, as technology become more accessible and affordable, the student will probably be stuffing some of these other handy devices into his backpack very soon. 

For approximately $200, one can purchase a digital highlighter.  This pen-like device contains an optical character recognition scanner, and when the stylus is ran across the words on a page, the pen reads the type and the scanned material is converted into text.  The information can then be accessed by a word processing program or a personal digital assistant. 

Also available are digital dictionaries, foreign language dictionaries/translators and thesauruses.  Why there are even digital, pocket-sized devices for students for use to prepare for the SAT exams.  Also look for the arrival of digital notepads.  These types of devices allow the student to write or draw on a digital notepad, which then stores the information on the computer.

The cost of going back to school in high-tech style can be costly.  Students and parents must take into consideration their school’s technology policy and whether the need for high-tech gear computes with the outlay of capital.

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