Professors vs. WiFi

murky.waters writes "The New York Times (free registration, profiling) has an article about the opposing views of teacher's demanding attention and students seeking distraction; the current trend toward wireless Internet access in the classroom has students surfing the web and checking their email from the backrow, while instructors are climbing up the ladder... to disconnect the Access Point." Makarand writes "University Wi-Fi networks are heavily impacting student campus life according to this article on NewsObserver.com. In addition to allowing them to keep working while not in their computer labs, the wireless networks allow them to keep in touch with their family, better organize time, complete coursework in shorter periods of time, collaborate with other students and bring computing power into classrooms not available before."

Comments

Attention span

[Alex Reynolds]

If the professor can't keep the attention of his or her students with wireless in the classroom, it's likely or at least possible that s/he wasn't able to give an interesting lecture before the advent of this technology.

Re:Attention span

[Bob McCown]

Another thing I heard many of the professors in college say, when a student or ten were not paying attention, was "Well, some of you arent playing attention, but, its not my $BIGNUM a year you're spending, and I dont have to tell your parents why you failed this class."

Re:Attention span

[HanzoSan]

oh wow you must know so much about giving lectures, you TEACH ANIMATION, I'm sure in your animation class you have to teach alot of syntax right?

Face it, in what you teach it doesnt really matter what you say or how bad your accent is, you teach animation, you dont need to explain in detail certain terms.

Lets give a lesson on C in bad english and see how much you can learn.

#inkluude

ent main()
{
printf("hellow world");
retuurn zero;
}

Yeah thats how you write C code in flawed syntax. Should I teach students that this is really how to write C?

People who cannot speak should not give speeches just like people who cannot read and write should not make it through grade school, I dont care if you are Mike Tyson or George Bush, if you cannot speak, and you cannot read and write you have no business being on TV talking to millions of people giving speeches on national security, or trying to use big words at press confrences that you cant say right.

Bush gets on TV and embarrasses our country with some of his speeches, I'm sure iraqis look at him and pronouce words better than he does, This isnt about race, its about ability.

Tony Blair can get on TV and give a speech and its proper, George Bush gets on TV and gives speeches that a 5th grade could have wrote.

"These evil terrarists" and "Them bad guys" and "We must stop dem from causin terra on our peoples"

I'm supposed to listen to garbage like this?
I respect him only because his president, but i dont like his speeches and I think he should let the vice President or Collin Powell talk for him.

I'm sorry but if you think I'm a racist because I dont like people with accents giving speeches I cant understand, perhaps you also believe that people who dont learn to read and write in school are victims of racism too? yeah blame race on everything.

Some thoughts

[bunyip]

We have the same problem where work, people who sit in meetings and work their email, pounding away with their thumbs and not paying attention. Many of these people don't really contribute to the meetings anyway, so it's not that great a problem.

As for universities, grades are the answer. My guess is that these students want to work chat and email in class, yet pull an easy "A" at the end of the semester. When they get a "C", or fail a class, perhaps they will make the right decision. If not, it's evolution in action.

Re:Some thoughts

[sporty]

As for universities, grades are the answer. My guess is that these students want to work chat and email in class, yet pull an easy "A" at the end of the semester. When they get a "C", or fail a class, perhaps they will make the right decision. If not, it's evolution in action.

If I'm making no noise, and have an easy grasp of the course material, who says I have to sit there or even take notes unless the class requires participation? I've had a disdain for professors who either require attendance and/or "undevided attention" when I know the course material or no participation in class ins necessary.

At work, yes. You are required to participate in meetings. But in college, it's totally different.

Re:Some thoughts

[tmark]

who says I have to sit there or even take notes unless the class requires participation? I've had a disdain for professors who either require attendance and/or "undevided attention" when I know the course material or no participation in class ins necessary.

As a former teacher at a major university, I can say that I wouldn't care if you don't pay attention. I *would* care, however, when students are checking their email or IM'ing each other because that activity inevitably distracts other students who *are* trying to pay attention, just the same as students who are whispering to each other constantly or passing notes. Images changing on a screen in front of a student can't help but draw their attention away. Hell, if laptops weren't necessary for a particular class, I would even consider disallowing use of *those* because the cacophony of keyboards-a-clicking is very distracting.

My stance was always that I didn't care if you came to class or not, but I did care if your decision affected other students.

A sign of the times

[sboyko]

Call me old-fashioned, but I wish for the days when you had a chance of having someone's complete attention. These days of cellphones, PDAs and laptops mean that distractions are commonplace.

Sure, many classes are very boring and students will lose interest regardless of what toy is in front of them, but I think professors have a right to limit distactions.

Re:A sign of the times

[SScorpio]

I completely agree with you especially in an academic environment. While going to school I didn't have these things other than a PDA need the end of my schooling. I didn't then, nor do I now see the need for these devices. If a teacher is extremely boring , then just do what I did just learn to sleep sitting up without snoring. This was especially helpfully after being up 'til ungodly hours working on school work, messing around on the Internet, or playing Video games. It still disheartens me to see all the students just wasting their time. If they don't care about the lecture then don't goto class. Sure it makes the class harder; however, if you not playing attention in it anyways there isn't much difference and you won't be distracting other students that are trying to learn. When all is said and done. New toys are fun but they do not work well in an academic environment. Hell, I'm against putting a computer in every classroom in primary schools. What use is a computer that occasionally gets used to play some dumb little educational game this is several levels below what is being taught in the class. Sure it's common place to need to know how to operate a computer but that doesn't mean you have to be around them at all times.

Re:A sign of the times

[fucksl4shd0t]

While going to school I didn't have these things other than a PDA need the end of my schooling. I didn't then, nor do I now see the need for these devices.

I'm sure at one time people didn't see the need for kids to take pen and paper to class either. It's a new age, and there are new tools available to help kids learn more stuff, and learn it better. We should encourage their use for learning, rather than discouraging their use entirely.

It's up to the professor to exploit the tools the kids have. For example, what if the professor says "Can somebody do a quick Google search to see what the consequences of the US joining the second world war later would have been?". Admitted, it's a contrived example, but computers are a powerful informational tool, and professors are to teach information. They should exploit this tool.

It still disheartens me to see all the students just wasting their time.

Students have always, and will always waste their time. This is a fact of life. If they are interfering with the class with their time-wasting, that's a human problem. Removing the computers will not solve this problem, because the problem existed long before computers were even invented.

New toys are fun but they do not work well in an academic environment.

The fact that computers are treated as toys is in itself, the problem. Make them a tool for education, not a toy for distraction. This is up to the professors and not the students, really. Wouldn't it be great if the professor gave html versions of their class notes to their students to view during the lecture? Then the student could fill them in with more detail than they would have had if they had to take the notes completely themselves, and then have more information to use while studying. At least the information would have more depth, and therefore be more meaningful.

Hell, I'm against putting a computer in every classroom in primary schools. What use is a computer that occasionally gets used to play some dumb little educational game this is several levels below what is being taught in the class.

This is also a human problem. Again, like I've said several times before, this is people not exploiting the tools that they have before them. It's up to the teacher to use the tool to benefit the class. Do the teachers need better software to do this? Arguably, yes. Do the teachers need training to exploit this tool? Definitely, yes. Does it do any good to slap one in every classroom (or on every kid's desk, where it could do the most good) without providing the necessary infrastructure (including software) to use it? No.

A tool is only as useful as the people using them allow them to be. Computers are a great tool for storing, retrieving, modeling, et al, information. Let's use them that way. But they still only do what they've been told to do.

Re:A sign of the times

[MattJ]

"It's up to the professor to exploit the tools the kids have. For example, what if the professor says "Can somebody do a quick Google search to see what the consequences of the US joining the second world war later would have been?". Admitted, it's a contrived example, "

I'll cut you slack because it was an example pulled out of your hat. But it really would be a terrible use of a computer in the classroom. Your professor is asking for not just a simple, noncontroversial "fact", but rather a historical judgement.

Even if you could come up with a decent Google query and find a good matching page within a minute or two (before the class moves on), you don't have time to read and assess the argument. All you can do is parrot what you've found. This is a good question for an essay, written with careful consideration, but not good for a quick in-class lookup.

Also, this is a good example of one of the biggest dangers of Googling, particularly for students. I'll call it the Law of Distorted Significance, though someone else may have described this otherwise. In a database of content and metacontent (e.g., Google) which is sufficiently large and diverse (created by millions of people around the world), you will find nearly *anything*. That much is shown by the difficulty of googlewhacking. The danger is that you can conclude that what you've found has real significance.

Re:A sign of the times

[Carmody]

What people do not realize is that people have become multi-tasking capable.

I've been a professor for many years. I've won awards for my teaching. I have a strong reputation among students for being a good teacher. So I am not just being a dick when I say:

What students do not realize is that they are not as multi-tasking capable as they think.

I am not being paid by you to lecture for a micro-century and then go home. I am not being paid by you to give you tests and grade them. You are paying for my expertise in teaching you the material. I say that when you are in my class you should be paying attention. You don't think that you should have to. You know what? I know more about this issue than you do. I say that when you are in my class, and we break into groups to discuss a calculus topic, that you should be listening to and talking to your classmates for that part of class. You don't see the point. You know what? I know more about this issue than you do. You are paying for my judgement.

Part of college may be the process of learning "time management" and all that, but you know what? I don't give a shit. In my calculus class, the only thing I care about is that you learn calculus. And, as a result of my experience in teaching, and research in education, I've found that if I insist on your attention, you will learn a hell of a lot more about it. I've done experiments to that end, have you? I've read literature about it. Have you? I've taught calculus to thousands of students. Have you?

My classes are usually interesting, according to my students, so this isn't that much of an issue for me. But you know what? You would have learned more if you listened all the time. Not all subjects are Monty Python's Flying Circus. Even though my classes tend to be fun in general, sometimes I will warn the students, "Gang, this is going to be a dry fifty minutes, and I'm sorry." and then I will procede to bore the fuck out of them. (Measure Theory wouldn't "VOOM" if you put four million volts through it) There are techniques that, as a professor, I can employ to help you through the dull spots. But even if a professor doesn't do that, tough titty.

If I had to solely listen to the professeur I would daydream and get bored because he would not speak fast enough

Then daydream. Get bored. Life is not always like Nintendo. If all of your professors bore you, then maybe you are in the wrong major, or at the wrong university.

I have not mentioned my particular policies re: attendence, laptops, doodling, etc. My policies are irrelevant to this discussion. The point is that you are paying the professor to exercise her or his judgment when setting those policies, and the professor likely knows more about it than you do.

How sad...

[muyuubyou]

...it is that new technologies find OPPOSITION at Universities so often. It really makes you think.

Maybe if teachers worked with technology instead

[HanzoSan]

of bashing the technology and blaming it for them being terrible and boring with their lectures they'd be fine.

Look, technology is good, WiFi is good, a smart teacher would use WiFi and the fact that all the students have laptops and AIM to their advantage, to get the students communicating better with each other through AIM, and to talk about the class.

The teacher could even bring his own laptop, add their AIM screen names to his AIM account, and talk to students via AIM.

This is college not highschool, a teacher cannot try to blame the students for lack of attention, students pay you with THEIR money so that you can get their attention, these people want to learn and pay to learn, if you arent doing a good job and they think your lecture is a complete waste of time they dont have to pay attention.

I've had great teachers give lectures and it doesnt even feel like a lecture, it feels like conversation because the teacher gets people involved, its even entertaining sometimes!

Then we have lectures where teachers read off a peice of paper going down a list of things they must talk about, perhaps some boring as hell subject like computer programmer, and the teacher is from india and cannot speak english properly, some people just should not lecture!!!

In this situation you'd be better off getting your information from the internet than listening to the lecturer guide you step by step on how to write hello world.

Wi Fi is good, schools need to learn to use technology to their advantage.

Wish I had wireless when I was a student.

[reaper20]

Quick google searches/FAQs would have helped me understand more of those obtuse subjects.

What the professor is really thinking is "Crap, this lesson is a one page 'for dummies' FAQ online, I better pad this with some bullshit."

The teacher passes responsiblity to student

[HanzoSan]

Because the professor cannot properly do their job they punish the students? Its not the students job to be interested in what you have to say, its YOUR job to keep their interest and give exciting lectures, its THEIR job to do the required work and pass the required tests as well as attend class.

There is no requirement to ENJOY the class or pay attention in the class, if the lecture is worthless crap they can read from the book or get on their own why should they pay attention.

If I take a class on C, and the teacher is explaining hello world and I already know C why the hell should I bother paying attention, and if the teacher has an accent when teaching this garbage like one of my teachers from india had, or a greek accent, forget it, I'm not even going to bother wasting my time trying to figure out what they are saying, Ill show up, and ill do what I want until the class is over.

Re:The teacher passes responsiblity to student

[Anonymous Coward]

BZZZZZZTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!

WRONG!!!!

Care to try again? The classroom environment requires the participation of BOTH the instuctor and the student. Additionally, the onus to aggressively pursue a quality learning envrionment lies more with the student. The best teacher in the world can't teach a student who actively resists, but a dedicated student can (and often WILL) suceed in learning a great deal despite instructors of a lower caliber. This is exemplefied in Mark Twain's famous quote: "I never let schooling interfere with my education."

---
Fighting ignorance and apathy since 1977

Re:The teacher passes responsiblity to student

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Well as a teacher, Thats true, it is up to the instructor to make the information at least digestible. I have two counter views however.

The classroom is a society and as such the student has a responsibilty to allow other students the opportunity to be interested, not distracted and get the benefit of the lecture. If anyone is slamming away at a laptop in class it is a distraction, or if they have a CD player going with headphones that can be heard 10 feet away, that is a distraction. If that is the case then assuming attendence is not mandetory that student should behave or not show.

The second observation I have is that some but not all students that seem to feel that they know the material, don't. You point about knowing C is a good example. No self respecting college level course teaches just C, or C++ or whatever. What is being taught is programming, or data structures or Object Oriented Paradigm, or some cluster of ideas, but never just a language. As I have observed in my day job, knowing a language has little to do with intellegent approaches to structuring and solving problems in way that is efficient, maintainable and re-usable. These are the other things that are taught along with say a language being taught.

If you get to a place where you think that it is not worth listening to someone teaching on your subject then you have stopped learning. Or better yet you can start that next process of learning by comparing what you hear with that you know and make those critical observations about how it should have been done. Much of my work has been just that, reverse engineering other peoples ideas about how something should have been done.

Opportunities are now, not later. Find the fault line to split the diamond in one blow.

Re:The teacher passes responsiblity to student

[StillNeedMoreCoffee]

Ey theres the rub. Especially for beginning classes which have students with a wide range of experience and apptitude and context. There is a tendency to try to bring everyone along and that pace can be slow and boring. The answer it to take each problem and extend it to its logical conclusion. Like maybe the hello world and design it to ask you for your language and respond in that language, which gets into some graphics programming when you go into the Japanese, Chinese, arabic...sanscrit etc.. And to make it configurable for adding new languages, possibly alien languages yet to be discovered. Designing that extensible framework would be a challenge.

Another example is an general ledger reporting system I had to write, in Fortran for a major bank years ago. Well you could get more boring, so I wrote a compiler and turned over the cost center wrappup language to the user to let them design what the system actually did. I after all did not want to be involved in the accounting, just the tool to do it.

I guess the other important point to learning (and teaching) is attitude. Take what you find and go deeper, ravage it and make it yours and new and better. And it will driver your instructor crazy, but with a smile. If he does not push your boundries, push his, gently and with a smile.

Re:The teacher passes responsiblity to student

[GreyPoopon]

The classroom environment requires the participation of BOTH the instuctor and the student.

Shhhhh. What's the matter with you? Let them think that the student doesn't have any responsibility. It's OK. It just means less competition for those of us who realize that you only get out of an education what you put into it.

Seriously though -- for those of you that think you shouldn't have to listen to a boring professor, grow up! You're going to encounter lots of people in life. Only a small percentage of them will be interesting to you. However, many of the most boring will have information that you need to know. Consider part of your college education as learning how to pick up good information from difficult sources. In my mind, the only professors you should complain about that are those that read the book verbatim to you in class and those whose pronunciation is so horrible that you can't understand them. If you have a professor like this, a visit to the dean of the college for a friendly discussion is probably a good idea.

Professors are being paid...

[mikeboone]

In my day :), we had no wi-fi, so I would sit in the back of unimportant classes and do the school paper's crossword puzzle. I was quiet and didn't bother anyone, and was just there in case something important came up like a test date or critical part of a lecture.

That seems reasonable to me for many of the undergrad courses I took, which I only took because they were requirements.

At any rate, professors were being paid with my money...they shouldn't care if I skipped class or did the crossword or surfed the net as long as I didn't disturb any of the other students.

Not high school

[airuck]

I have taught several university courses in computer labs and can sympathize with the distraction of having to compete with email and the web, but this article is not about high school. University students are paying customers and instructors are employees. It may be rude to the instructor, but as long as they are distracting other students, then it is their choice. Of course, I am far less likely to assist a student who spent more time chatting (on line or off) than a student really working to master the material.

Re:Maybe if teachers worked with technology instea

[the_rev_matt]

Technology is not good. Technology is technology. It is neither good nor evil. Like any other tool, it can be used for many different things. In the examples you give, technology isn't the solution. Better teachers is the solution. You're trying to apply a technological solution to a sociological problem and it doesn't work. Yes, wi can be used to great advantage in schools and it should be.
Kids surfing porn/slashdot/etc during class is not integral to the education process.

The teacher could even bring his own laptop, add their AIM screen names to his AIM account, and talk to students via AIM

Um, they're all in the same room, why on earth would that be of any use to anyone? They don't need their computer with them at all times to add someone to their AIM list unless they are incapable of writing it down on a piece of paper (a distinct possibility in our age of techno-worship).

This is college not highschool, a teacher cannot try to blame the students for lack of attention, students pay you with THEIR money so that you can get their attention, these people want to learn and pay to learn, if you arent doing a good job and they think your lecture is a complete waste of time they dont have to pay attention.

Have you been to college? I knew many students who felt that since they were paying to attend, they should be guaranteed passing grades and shouldn't have to be bothered with things like homework or tests or showing up. My dad taught college for 30+ years and in the last 10 I can't count the number of parents who had the same attitude. "We're paying your salary, you have to give him a passing grade even if he never came to class."

Why use AIM when everyone is in the same room?

[MyNameIsFred]

Am I missing something? Why use AIM if everyone is sitting in the same room? It's a lot easier just to raise your hand and say something. I agree that technology could be better employed in the classroom, but this doesn't seem to be the answer.

As for bad profs, I agree. The problem is the University makes a lot of money off of research grants. Hence, they're very interested in how much research money the prof will bring in, and not interested enough in how well the prof teaches. In my view, the priorities are skewed. I long for the legendary days before "publish or perish."

Re:Maybe if teachers worked with technology instea

[JimDabell]

Maybe if teachers worked with technology instead of bashing the technology and blaming it for them being terrible and boring with their lectures they'd be fine.

Okay, but you have to realise that wifi doesn't really add many possibilities to a lecture beyond what is capable with projectors and simple discussion. For instance:

The teacher could even bring his own laptop, add their AIM screen names to his AIM account, and talk to students via AIM.

As opposed to simply talking to them?

This is college not highschool, a teacher cannot try to blame the students for lack of attention

Agreed 100%. It's the student's responsibility to learn using the available resources - if they dick around instead of paying attention, then they won't get very far.

Then we have lectures where teachers read off a peice of paper going down a list of things they must talk about, perhaps some boring as hell subject like computer programmer, and the teacher is from india and cannot speak english properly, some people just should not lecture!!!

Been there, done that...

In this situation you'd be better off getting your information from the internet than listening to the lecturer guide you step by step on how to write hello world.

In this situation, you'd be better off pointing it out to their superiors. If the lecturer is redundant, then it's a waste of money to employ them. If there is anything to be gained from having a lecturer, then their students are being cheated.

I don't see how "lecture notes available through the internet" translates to "wifi in lecture halls is useful" though. If the lectures aren't useful to you, skip them and download the notes from wherever you like.

Life is not MTV

[wazzzup]

I'm going to have to side with the professors on this one. I recall an earlier post that it's the professor's fault for not providing an entertaining enough lecture. I'm sorry, but I would never hire a person that I knew felt that way.

Life is not a constant stream of entertainment. The most rewarding things in life come from blood, sweat and tears and an education is one of them. While I think you should enjoy your chosen field of study, I don't think is has to compete on the same level as the latest Eminem video or an email of how your friend saw this really hot chick at Wal-Mart.

Besides, I don't even think it's possible to make all courses entertaining to all. Do you as, say a programmer, expect to really get into Classic Greek Literature 540 as a form of entertainment?

Does Sesame Street have a university?

Re:Life is not MTV

[budalite]

Ah, Finally. Something to reply to. As an old guy returning to school, I had forgotten that good teachers at any level are the exception, rather than the rule. Teachers who are interested in whether someone else understands the material and will actually take the time to learn how to teach, learn how people learn, and care whether each and every student does the best s/he can are, unfortunately, in the minority. I have taken 4 classes at a major U. here in VA. Two of the teachers, one a professor, essentially mailed in their work. The third was simply incompetent and never should have considered teaching. The fourth, ah, the fourth, was a little lady, a "converted" Classics Prof. teaching CS I to a auditorium of newbies, made CS a joy. She translated her love of the subject , love of teaching, and concern for her students into a course where going to class was one of the highlights of my week.
Sure, life's tough. You gotta take what you can get and do your best, often in spite of the obstabcles. I do wonder, however, how many careers were launched by that lady and how many careers were re-directed or just doused by the others. (ps. And why can't Classic Greek Literature 540 be interesting? Who would you rather talk to? Someone who talks to you because they have to or because they want to?)

Re:Shouldn't matter

[Kombat]

If the class is interesting then the students will stay on task

Not everyone finds network analysis interesting, but it is a required part of the cirriculum for many comp sci degrees. Some people find it fascinating.

It is not the material that makes it boring or interesting, it is the student. People have different interests. Not all subjects are inherently interesting to everyone. But they still must learn it, if they want that piece of paper.

Re:Exactly,

[Anonymous Coward]

Not quite true. Most students are paying for the degree and often see any class outside their narrow focus as an obstacle to graduation. The idea of a university is to educate, and sometimes that includes learning ideas that may not be initially interesting to a student. How many management majors want to take a course in the philosophical foundations of ethics? How many do we wish would? The CEO of Enron, perhaps?

If a school is going to give someone a degree, it is saying that person has completed all the requirements for graduation -- i.e. has gained a broad enough education to be granted a bachelor's degree. The degree is not a commodity and shouldn't be cheapened by letting students who are too immature to realize that a course has value completely ignore it. Yes, some instructors should be better, but that doesn't release the student from the responsiblity to learn.

Teachers are teachers, not babysitters

[goldspider]

By the time a student is of university age, it should be their responsibility to stay on task, not the teacher's to keep them there. Whether a student pays attention and takes notes and whatnot, or instead does his or her own thing on the Internet, their level of diligence will be reflected in the grades.

It is the teacher's job to teach, not make sure that everyone is paying attention and doing their work. A good teacher will try to get everyone involved (it's especially funny when they call on a sleeping student to answer a question; that kind of embarassment solves a lot of attention problems). But it is not their job to assume the responsibility that ultimately belongs to the students.

Now in grade school, this is a little more complicated, but that's a discussion for another article...

Social Engineering?

[rf600r]

Ok, so studets are being rude and disrespectful, and teh solution is to unplug the network? Why not ask that students NOT use their computers during a lecture? You know, act like grownups?

Don't give me this "I pay your salary BS." If you don't want to listen to the lecture, stay in your room and surf porn. But, if I'm the teacher, it is my duty to deliver what you paid me to deliver. If I ask you to kindly treat me with a tad bit of respect and close the lid on your laptop, then just do it.

On the other hand

[dachshund]

If I'm making no noise, and have an easy grasp of the course material, who says I have to sit there or even take notes unless the class requires participation? I've had a disdain for professors who either require attendance and/or "undevided attention" when I know the course material or no participation in class ins necessary.

As a former student, soon to be teaching, I'm torn on this one. The difference between my best and my worst classes has often been student engagement. When half the class is zoning out, I find it that much harder to be interested in the material. When everyone around me is bright-eyed and bushy-tailed (whether it be because the material is interesting, or because they know their performance depends on their absorbing the material), the attitude is contagious. In-class teaching is valuable, and very often provides more than any textbook. And for god's sake, you didn't pay $n,000 dollars to get the same education you could get from a video-correspondance course.

I wish more professors moved from dry lecturing to a slightly more socratic class style. In the absence of that, they might at least making the material important enough that you can't afford to miss it (ie, not a re-hash of the textbook chapter.) At very least, it's not unreasonable to make attendance non-mandatory and demand that the people who don't want to be there go check their email somewhere else.

Re:On the other hand

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Well, yes, and that's the answer. Generations of students have zoned out in classes with boring teachers; it's just that now it's more obvious that they're zoning out because they're working on electronic devices instead of just daydreaming. A good professor, with an interesting speaking style, who adds a depth of understanding to the course material that students can't get by just reading the textbook, is a lot less likely to have problems with this. I'd be very interested to see student evaluation results on the professors who are kicking up the most fuss ... Like the NYT article says, " The screens provide a silent commentary on the teacher's attention-grabbing skills."

Now, granted, there will inevitably be students who are too easily distracted -- "Oooh, shiny!" -- to pay attention even to good profs. You know what? Screw 'em? The rest of the class, both students and professor, will know who those people are, and work around them. In the rare cases where those people are geniuses who just get the material without paying attention in class, well, good for them. In the much more common case where they're goof-offs, well, their grades will show that at end of term.

Re:On the other hand

[ruzel]

And for god's sake, you didn't pay $n,000 dollars to get the same education you could get from a video-correspondance course.

You're damn skippy I didn't pay $n for a correspondance course, which is why I quit college after it dawned on me that I could get a hell of lot more information from books than professors. I may not have gone to the best college in the world (UGA) but I was sorely disappointed.

I think it is completely and totally the professor's fault if students are not engaged. Students and kids, they are young -- they do not understand the value of the information their professors possess and it is therefore up to the professors to illustrate the value.

I, for one, got really tired of research-track professors who came into class with about as much excitement in them as a unisom. Once upon a time (during the Enlightenment, I'm told) people actually applauded lectures. Where are those lecturers? I had a couple, but the majority of my professors were dull. They may have possessed expertise in their field, but their teaching skills were pathetic.
_______________________

Re:On the other hand

[Daniel Dvorkin]

I don't quite buy that analogy. The hypothetical porn movie playing in the front of the room isn't under the control of the individual student. (More realistically -- I've been in plenty of classes where there was something noisy going on outside the window, and yes, that makes it damn hard to concentrate even if you want to.) If you're doing something distracting on your own laptop while sitting in a lecture you really should be paying attention to, that's your problem; if the lecture is so boring that it's not worth paying attention to, hey, do all the IM'ing and online gaming and e-mailing and Web-surfing you want.

I'm a bit of an elitist about the distraction problem, I guess. I started grad school when my marriage was in the final stage of falling apart -- and buddy, there ain't no Wi-Fi connection in the world that's as distracting as that. And I still pulled straight A's. So, to those who can't concentrate because they really feel the need to go a few more rounds of Quake, I say: grow the fuck up. It helps when Mommy and Daddy aren't paying your way, of course ...

The Scourge of Daydreaming

[reallocate]

This is this week's version of staring out of the the windows.

But...

1. Students ought not to be able to pass unless they pay attention in class.

2. Teachers ought to say something not available elsewhere.

Re:Maybe if teachers worked with technology instea

[extra88]

What a stupid idea, a teacher using IM *in class.* They're in the same room, they should talk! I can concoct scenarios in which that's not stupid but they almost never happen in real life.

You really aren't asking professors to be interesting, you are asking them to be entertaining, more entertaining than what students can find on a 'net connection. That almost never happens and isn't really a plausible goal anyway.

Even if the students are paying for school themselves, they're not buying the right to be rude, to the teacher or to their fellow students. Students can't properly judge whether a lecture is a waste of their time while it's going on, only when the course is over or maybe after their next assignment.

There are certainly many people who do not teach well, especially in a "sage on the stage" setting, and schools could use less of that format but that's no excuse for being so disrespectful and a distraction to your classmates.

So professors get paid just to show up

[HanzoSan]

Why the hell do we need professors then? If they are paid just to show up and force you to look at them, what exactly is it that they do if they dont give good lectures?

Hard work is one thing, but we are PAYING them, they arent free, they arent giving up anything here, we pay them to do what we want them to do, and thats give an exciting lecture.

I dont think you'll find alot of college students who agree with your opinion that lectures should be boring and dull, people want their moneys worth.

All courses can be entertaining to the majority of the people if the courses are interactive and engaging.

You want to make a boring course like C programming fun? Find someone who can speak REALLY well, not someone from india with an accent.
Find someone who can communicate the basics of programming but in a unique way, complete with jokes, and very detailed explainations including visual.

The good lectures usually arent 100 percent focused strictly on that topic, they drift off alittle bit but the lecturer makes sure to get the point across, students get to talk and ask questions, talk about personal things, so that it feels more like group discussion instead of just blah blah blah blah where students just sit and listen.

Degree Vs Education

[drcrja]

From my experience there are two types of students. (1) Those who want a degree and (2) those who want an education.

Usually, those who want an education are those who are paying attention in class.

Re:just block extranet access?

[extra88]

That's not a terrible idea but then some students set up open proxies to surf through and become not just classroom distractions but security and spam risks as well.

Very few college students are capable of determining whether a lecture is worthwhile or not.

Hwo do you know it's interesting?

[DrSkwid]

When the professeur was interesting then I listened.

So while sleeping you multi-tasking brain was able to wake you up when the prof got interesting?

wtg.

Smart kids, Dumb Professors.

[HanzoSan]

I've been in classes with professors who simply had nothing to teach. When I'm not learning anything for a lecture why should I pay attention? Why should I be required to pay attention to hello world when I already know C? I KNOW C ALREADY.

In classes where I dont know something and the lecturer is teaching something thats not in the books or on a peice of paper in front of them, I listen, but when I can get that information from other sources, or I already know the information why should I be taking notes and paying attention?

I'm not spoiled, I'm poorer than most people here, I have to take out loans, use financial aid and do whatever it takes to pay for college. Fact is I'm paying to be taught something, I'm paying for GOOD lectures, for INSTRUCTION THATS GOOD, I can do better than some professors so why should I pay attention whe I can read the C tutorial and get more detailed information than they give? And these stupid professors who dont let you ask questions or who get mad when you ask too many questions

Why the hell do I need you if you cant answer questions? you get my point.

Guess what

[antis0c]

This is college. The student is paying for it. If he wants to fuck off and browse the web instead of listening to lectures and taking notes, fine. As long as he's not distracting other students, let him waste his money. He'll only have to pay again to retake the class he failed.

whitelist?

[BigBir3d]

Why not just have a whitelist of allowed IP's to access? It is not dificult to block access to certain ports also...

Enough "Connection Refused" pages accompanied with loud embarrassing noises will probably cause students to look for other forms of entertainment, maybe even the prof?!

Re: [not] Exactly,

[Blkdeath]

And if the student is not paying enough attention to the professor to actually give an honest, fair evaluation, what then?

One of the professors at the college I attended was probably the best lecturer I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. (And yes, he had a fairly distinct Italian accent. If you paid attention, however, you could understand what he was saying - he was kind enough to enunciate industry terminology) However, he had post-secondary expectations of the students who had secondary school expectations of the course. Therefore he wound up with dozens of complaints and really poor reviews. Throughout the course he gave lectures including many things that weren't in the assigned textbook or in the handout materials - kind of extra digressions of the course material. Much of it helped to learn the materikal better, some of it was simply an extra interesting fact or two that we could take away with us. Much of it, however, was to be on the final exam. See, he'd already noticed a rather distinct pattern of students who were away from most every class.

Early in the course, he handed out a 30-50 page report, due in about three months, and from then on the students decided, en masse, to unilaterally hate and ignore said teacher. As a result, he was forced to lower the bar to ridiculous levels when marking these assignments; to the point where I, who had handed in a large, well researched, well complied paper covering all the outlined materials, nicely presented in a folder, felt slighted. Granted, I got an A+ on the paper - but the guy who handed in a four page, double spaced, stapled, wide margin paper with (of all things) pictures got an A.

The unfortunate aspect of colleges and universities is the fact that they are, by and large, a business. Their clients are their students; without whom they could not keep their doors open. I entered college with the rather naive impression that college would be somehow better than high school because, hey, people are paying thousands of dollars to be here so they have to care, right? As it turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong. College students seemed to be some of the most spoiled, apathetic brats I've had the displeasure of being associated with. What made matters worse was the fact that so many of them had cars, not to mention that the majority were 'of age' to drink and could skip class in favour of the campus bar.

I'm of the opinion that college should have a pre-requisite that students do sometghing on their own for a period of one-two years such as work a full-time job, rent their own appartment and manage bills; something to aquaint themselves with the real world before they get to sit in padded, swivellling chairs and ignore the poor schmuch trying to instill knowledge in them.

To get topical; wireless or no wireless, students will likely always ignore the teacher to some extent. The "Back Row" students will always find distractions; even if they have to bring a switch/hub and some ethernet cables and play games against one-another, they'll do it. Our primary lab was wired with a 2:1 ratio of ethernet ports to computers, therefore allowing every student to also bring a laptop with them (which was, for various reasons, against policy, but I digress). To get around the problem of students playing games, chatting on ${MESSENGER}, surfing the web - many teachers would instruct the students to close all laptops and turn off all monitors. There were few rare exceptions for the students who actually took lecture notes on their computers, but those were typically sitting at or near the front and were few and far between.

Perhaps these instructors could simply ask the disruptive students who obviously aren't paying attention why they're there? After all, if they just want to use the network and play games / horse around - couldn't they do that in the school's lounge, student centre, cafeteria, etc..? If they continue to not pay attention, they could be asked to leave, lest they disrupt the remainder of the class. Sure, they have a right to be there based on the money they've paid - but they don't have the right to disrupt the class for the dozens of others who've also paid thue same amount.

Attention & Consideration

[sjbe]

Several points I'd like to make.

People who aren't going to pay attention, will not do so even without computers to entertain them. They might just stare off into space with no alternatives but taking away computers doesn't mean they are paying attention.

Being in class and doing anything besides participating in class in an appropriate manner is rude to the teacher and distracting your fellow students. The worst are people who come to class and then sleep. If you aren't interested, don't come. Which bring's me to my next point...

Mandatory attendance in a college class is (in general) stupid. There are fairly few non-lab courses where attendance actually matters. If someone prefers to get their material out of a book, let them. If being in class is important to passing the class, the students will figure that out. Teachers should think of class attendance as feedback on the difficulty of the material and the quality of the lecturing.

Conversely, if you (or your parents) are paying for a college education and you do not make every effort to get as much out of it as possible you are an idiot.

Yes, surfing the net is often more interesting than a lecture, but even a boring lecture often has useful information. Even the worst lectures (and I've had some very bad ones) usually contain something worth knowing. You are going to be dealing with boring meetings, boring tasks, and boring people for the rest of your career. You might as well learn how to get the most out of them.

The teacher's job is not to entertain you, it is to teach you. Effective teaching often correlates with being interesting to listen to but you can learn without being entertained.

Finally, don't be so arrogant and assume you know what is important about a subject better than the teacher. There is usually a reason the teacher is lecturing on the material they choose. They aren't doing it just to annoy you.

Hmmm....

[blankmange]

As a both a student (undergrad & master's) and an instructor (technical), I can agree with the some of the points made here, but here is the crux:

As a student, I made the classes I felt necessary and skipped the ones I felt worthless. I was mature enough to understand that if I goofed, my GPA suffered. No problems, however, as I graduated in the top quarter of my class, both under & post graduate. As an instructor, it can be very frustrating if you have students who are actively not participating in the class, but I also understand that if I don't have the material to make the class interesting, there is little I can do to keep their attention. My only concern is whether or not the students who are choosing to pay attention & participate are not affected by these (admittedly few) other students........

Mute Button, Please

[adso]

I teach a 3D applications course in the architecture department at a large university. When I wander a bit in the lab during a lecture, I can see that about 10% of the students are online. Does this bother me? A little, but as has been said before, if they aren't making noise, no big deal. What does bother me is when some of those students show up at my office hours asking about the assignment, when I know they were more focused on trying to boost their karma than ask a question during classtime.
In a design studio, WI-FI is a godsend. Frequently during reviews, I will reference some obscure building or piece of art, and the ability to dig up an image of it in a minute or so and send it to the rest of the class is invaluable.
Cell phones are still a scourge though. Get any group of professors together and a rant about ringing phones is sure to ensue. Nothing derails a train of thought like a sudden chime of the Godfather theme, which forces me to stop a lecture and ask, "What are you, A.J. Soprano?"

Mesh networks!

[certron]

If the teacher unplugs the access point, the wireless-enabled devices could just go ad-hoc or set up a mesh network and, through that, connect to the access point in the next room (hopefully). :-)

It is still the responsibility of the student to learn the material, if they desire to pass the course in any reasonable fashion. The teacher doesn't *have* to give interesting lectures, but it is generally appreciated.

I can attest to the distraction

[ethank]

When I was finishing my undergraduate degree at UC San Diego, the campus was not yet fully wi-fi-ed. I was bored out of my mind because I had put off my GE's until the last possible time I could take them.

The only thing that got me through it was my Ricochet connection in the class room. However I can say that it did distract me to such an extent in class that my grades suffered because of it. I actually ended up not passing one of the classes.

That being said I'm involved in wi-fi-ing the art department at the university I'm currently at for graduate school.

While it is true that teaching has to adapt to wi-fi usage, I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing to force it to adapt. Just like any disruptive technology, the repurcusions outside its immediate sphere usually leads to a balancing effect upon other actants in the network it disrupts.

So basically: everything should adapt to pervasive connectivity, whether it likes it or not.

The Two-Headed Beast of SCIENCE!!

[Crash Culligan]

It's been mentioned enough times on this topic, but it bears repeating: technology has both good and bad points. Furthermore, given the extensive use of technology, a solution may exist which nobody's thought of yet.

Good point: Wireless networking allows students ways to remotely research class topics outside the classroom. Yes they could go to the library before, or stay in their dorm rooms and look this stuff up, but the new technology allows that work to fit more neatly into campus life. Result: More opportunity to study.

Bad point: Wireless networking allows students ways to slack off inside the classroom. Yeah, attention deficiency is nothing new in the classroom, but considering the things the modern laptop can do, its presence can be an awful temptation to those already inclined to play around. Result: More opportunity to ignore the teacher.

Both are valid, and to take one side is to trivialize the other.

As another aside, there's been some talk of whose fault it is students get bad grades. It's the teacher's responsibility to present the course's subject matter in a reasonable, easy-to-follow fashion. It's not his responsibility to spoon-feed the student a passing grade, no matter how undeserved.

Rule of thumb: if one student does poorly in a class, odds are it's the student's fault. If almoast everyone does poorly in a class, odds are it's the teacher's fault.

Profs are there to teach you.

[theLOUDroom]

First off: (The on-topic stuff)
Not every class is a super-imortant, don't know it already class.
Example: I took ECON101, attended 5 lectures the entire semester and recieved an A. How did I do it? I did the required work and already understood the material. Why was I in the class?...to statisfy degree requirements. Luckily, they didn't take attendance, so I didn't have to go sit through lectures about this I already understood.

That's right, there are classes that you are actually required to take, even if you already know the material.

Not paying attention in class doesn't necessarily mean you're lost. Sometimes those kids who aren't paying attention, already know the material, and are just there becuase the prof. likes to give quizzes.

Doesn't anyone remember how boring it is to sit through someone drone on about something you already understand? (And I do mean drone, possibly with an unintelligble accent.) One of my favorite things about college is that if a lecture sucks, I can usually get up and leave. I can't always do that though, some classes actually require attendance, even when the lectures are totally passive experiences.

The important thing is not suffering through lousy lectures. The important thing is actually understanding the course material. That's why businesses want a degree: It shows that you've taken tests and passed them. (Or completed projects successfully.)

Second:
I really hate the "spoonfeeding" analogy. It's really a load of BS. I haven't heard that crap since HS. Teachers are there to teach you, not to hand you a book and say "I'm not going to spoonfeed you." I can read a book by my damnself. I do expect the prof. to "spoonfeed" me, as in, break the information into reasonable sized chunks and deliver it to me (a.k.a. lectures). If I have a question, I expect to be given an answer, not to have to suffer through analogies that compare me to an infant. Why do you think I'm paying to go to school? If someone thinks they're too important to answer questions, they shouldn't be involed in teaching. Provided the person isn't asking for test answers, there really isn't much of an excuse not to answer someone's question. Suffering is not equivalent to learing. Teachers should just answer questions, and if they think it was something the student should have been able to figure out on their own, the can ask the student a question about it. This way, they answer the student's question (as opposed to insulting them) and still get to make them think.