Banning Laptops In Class
As people deal with the impact of technology on their lives, occasionally there’s some pushback, like from law professors banning laptops in their classrooms. The profs say the machines inhibit debate and turn their students into “stenographers”, and they’re tired of catching people surfing the web or playing online poker during lectures. While that’s probably annoying, what’s the point in banning laptops because some students can’t handle them? If a law student can’t be bothered to stop playing poker while they’re in class, it’s unlikely that taking away the machine is going to turn them into a good, attentive student. There’s an inherent risk in adopting new technologies for education, that some people will abuse them. But is it really any different than somebody doodling or daydreaming? Laptop computers aren’t making people bad students, they’re just doing a better job than pen and paper of keeping bad students entertained.
Because I am in school and rely so heavily on my laptop for everything from school to work to home, I find it utterly ridiculous that a professor would consider banning laptops from class a solution to bad student performance. Bad students are going to be bad students no matter what. A good student is not going to become a bad student because he or she has the “distraction” of a laptop. The laptop is the new notepad; the same fool sitting in class drawing doodles is the same fool chatting with friends during class. Frankly. I use my machine to take notes, check my email, and otherwise keep my life moving while in the confines of class. I also am enrolled in a degree program that is 90-percent online, making the no-computer-in-class argument even more absurd.
Someone once asked me to stop typing while the teacher was speaking. I was at first taken aback; I was using my machine to take notes. But I do attack the keyboard as though I am playing a piano so I could undertand the other student’s position. But while I did try to quiet my typing I also mentioned that I was taking notes and not chatting with friends, which seemed to be the implication.
Banning laptops from class is pointless. This is how we work and how we study and how we live. In fact, while in class just this past weekend, we were discussing some open-source pirating issues when I recalled reading about the topic in the blogs from my company (excellent post by Senior Technology Editor Chris Lindquist). Because I was online, I could bring up those blogs and add considerable knowledge to the discussion.
May 15th, 2006 at 2:21 pm
As a journalist I was one of the first to bring a laptop with me to face to face interviews. Being “handwriting challenged” I needed to type in order to read the record of the interview accurately, and also for pure efficiency — a typed, digital record is searchable, and infinitely more manipulable than a handwritten, analog record which is subject to poor penmanship and misinterepretation.
the sound of a keyboard is very off-putting to many people, who were aware that the keys clicked and clacked whenever they were speaking, but stopped when they stopped. This put the interview subject subconciously on notice that their words were being recorded. I desperately wished for a silent keyboard that wouldn’t give the cues.
So, I can understand that some people would be put off by the sound of typing, and I can understand professors getting pissed off by poker players in their classroom, but this is a tide that is going to keep rising.
Tablet PCs and Microsoft One Note are the solution, and indeed, some schools are requiring tablets for incoming students.
May 15th, 2006 at 2:54 pm
Yes, I agree. And my wife, a clinical psychologist, says that even just having a laptop in the room while doing therapy can freak some people out (she does not bring her laptop to the office for this reason). My biggest problem is that I tend to really bang on the keys … heavy hands from years of piano.
But truly I think the availablility to get to files and the internet enhance the classroom experience. It’s how the individual applies it that makes the difference. And again, I’m in an online program so it’s sort of a given that it’s going to play a big role.
I use OneNote at work and for school. I find it extremely useful for notetaking and meetings, but I still have yet to find a good way to keep organized. I can count on my memory for most things … but I find these days I need something more. Perhaps Foldera will come to the rescue.
May 16th, 2006 at 2:20 pm
If the issue is students being distracted by internet useage during a lecture (emailing, ebaying, surfing, etc.), then don’t have the network available in the classroom. Save it for the study areas and library, or, if a professor wishes, simply disable it during a lecture. But allow the use of laptops for note-taking for those of us who are, as Mr. Churbuck put it, “handwriting challenged.”
If the issue is the student being distracted from the lecture, I’ve seen students distracted by food, conversation, passing notes, playing hangman (okay, I’m guilty of that one, but it was x-rated hangman with the girl next to me and the lecture was hideously boring) and reading magazines in class. If a student is going to be distracted, they can be equally distracted with things other than laptops.
I couldn’t have gotten through law school without my laptop. And sure, I was watching .wmv Justice League cartoons during CivPro, but in the other window, I was taking copious notes. Honest.