Slashdot Mirror
U. of Chicago Law School Blocks Internet Access
Scott Jaschik writes "While some individual professors have banned laptops from classes at various colleges, the University of Chicago law school is going further, cutting off wireless and wired access in its classrooms to confront what officials see as out-of-control Web surfing. The story was first reported in the Above The Law 'legal tabloid' late last month. Students and the university's CIO question the strategy." Things will get interesting when Sprint WiMax service lights up in Chicago later this year.
Uhhh... exactly why would lawyers want to change a system created by them, enforced by them, and controlled by them?
I can appreciate the reason they're taking such extreme measures, but wouldn't it be better for everybody if they just let the people goofing off in class fail?
I always assumed that once you hit college the hand-holding by instructors was supposed to stop.
Maybe they could use group projects to fix the problem. I know in my college classes I was a righteous dick to any group members who just goofed off on the Internet rather than contributing towards the project.
I loved my system analysis and design class where we could 'fire' group members for poor performance (and trust me, people did.)
At my law school, students would sometimes view porn on their computers during class--this was very distracting in the tiered rooms, where about 15 students behind the "perpetrator" could see what was happening. It wasn't common but I sometimes heard complaints that "so-and-so would look at porn to try to distract everyone behind him." I imagine it didn't help his own scores either, though. Other students would sometimes send crazy stuff over email during class in order to embarass the person or distract him. Chatting, of course, was rampant during class--that may have been a bit distracting. For example, the teacher will have been silent, and there's nothing to take notes on at the moment, and you hear several people typing like crazy and snickering oblivious to their surroundings--more annoying when that person's right next to you.
Sadly, after the grades came out, it seemed that chatting and porn viewership had a low correlation with scores. (i.e. I actually took notes but was middle of the road for grades)
Those must be some insanely simple classes you are taking. Not sure how great a laptop would be in real time for writing complex formulas, or diagrams of how things like a thermo system or airfoil work.
Maybe a tablet that let you freehand sketch accurately in addition to typing. I still think that would be rather clumsy compared to a pencil and notebook.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I teach courses in literature, most frequently poetry, at a major Southern university.
This semester I've been trying to decide how to deal with students texting in class and with students who use laptops recreationally in class. I haven't come up with an ideal solution, but I'm leaning toward banning cellphones. The laptop thing is harder; many students use them to take notes and for reference, which is laudable. I think I might tell students using laptops to be prepared to e-mail me notes on demand at the end of class so that I'll know who's using a laptop to take notes and who's goofing off.
So that's background. I'm posting in response to some ideas from the student perspective that I see repeated here.
Several posters say that students are capable of multi-tasking. This is true, but research indicates that you're not capable of doing anything well nor of retaining it when you multi-task.
Several posters suggest that they should be allowed to be the judge of what's worthwhile. I'm all for agency, but if you decide to tune out, you might miss something that would interest you. Furthermore, some material isn't so exciting, and though a teacher should attempt to generate interest, some students expectations are unreasonably high when it comes to the entertainment value of literature. Maybe, too, it would be well to look on a lecture as a form of work.
A few people say they can pass without paying attention in lectures. That is probably true. I often find myself dumbing down my lectures, assignments, and exams so that students who have tuned out during class can pass. If I fail too many students, my enrollments go down, my evaluations suffer, and I may even lose my job, as I am on one-year contracts and get rehired based on student evaluations. If I do that, for fear of my job, the content of the course suffers.
Finally, a few people here say lectures are outdated and that content should be online. What about procrastination; would students just shrug off all this content until finals? What about dialog; will all exchange in your life take place via chat? What about seeing others modelling an interest in material only understood or valued by a minority? Do you want to give those faculty who are already distant from students one more excuse to tune you out completely?
I guess I'll conclude by saying that the small minority of students who text in class or play on their laptops in class are the worse students in my class. They waste a lot of my time asking me about things covered in class or begging for favors and special attention. And they tend to earn poor grades. I wouldn't want to be their boss and certainly not one of their fellow employees. Though as their boss, I could fire the lot of them, and that would be very gratifying.