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Professors Banning Laptops In the Lecture Hall
Pickens writes "The Washington Post reports that professors have banned laptops from their classrooms at George Washington University, American University, the College of William and Mary, and the University of Virginia, among many others, compelling students to take notes the way their parents did: on paper. A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen, but during the past decade it has evolved into a powerful distraction as wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming. Even when used as glorified typewriters, laptops can turn students into witless stenographers, typing a lecture verbatim without listening or understanding. 'The breaking point for me was when I asked a student to comment on an issue, and he said, "Wait a minute, I want to open my computer,"' says David Goldfrank, a Georgetown history professor. 'And I told him, "I don't want to know what's in your computer. I want to know what's in your head."' Some students don't agree with the ban. A student wrote in the University of Denver's newspaper: 'The fact that some students misuse technology is no reason to ban it. After all, how many professors ban pens and notebooks after noticing students doodling in the margins?'"
Doodling with pen and paper doesn't absorb the attention to the same degree as playing Facebook games and chatting with friends via IM.
I don't know what they think is happening, but I had the same thing happen with pencil and paper. Trying to keep up with some profs who are scribbling madly on the chalk/whiteboard, or just droning on and on. Stuff gets written down with little or no thought so it can be studied later. I'd be happier having it in a nice doc I can search while reading my books or through other pages of notes. They just don't like the fact that their audience isn't as mentally trapped if they are boring or unable to retain student attention.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Seeing how this is college, I'm dumbfounded by the "nannying" going on here.
The way I see it, unless laptops as a whole are distracting to _other_ students then they are nothing more than another medium to take notes on. On the other hand, if I happen to have a laptop that makes a lot of noise (intended or not) and it is distracting the professor or other students, then I see a problem.
I am a TA and I attended a math tutorial class as an observer earlier today. I was sitting in the last row. I saw one or two guys with laptop open, playing first-person shooting games.
When I attended university as a freshmen 8 years ago, laptops are still clunky and not easy to carry around like netbooks. So somewhat we were forced to take down notes by hand.
In practical lab classes like signal processing, in my day we had to manually copy the signal traces on analogue oscilloscope to the lab notebook. But now, with camera phones, its a matter of taking a snap.
I am not against new technology. But technology that hinders the education.. should be kept outside classroom!
Here's a thought: Instead of banning distractions, be the distraction yourself. For centuries, teachers have been competing with distractions, including daydreamers and sleepers. Laptops and the Internet are just more things to compete with. Instead, make your lectures interesting. Vary the tone of your voice, provide practical examples, and stay away from the temptation to just stand there and talk. Yes, you're a professor. Yes, students are paying to hear your ideas. No, they are not paying to just hear your voice.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
Laptop/tablet note taking has drastically reduced my paper load and improved the quality of my notes. If I were in any of these schools, I would take this issue as far as I possibly could.. I actually have in the past with individual professors, and I always came out the victor because there is simply no sane justification for such a policy. That said, I have a big problem with students playing games in class where I can see their screen. I've told people in the past, that if they're going to play games, at least sit in the friggin back row so no one else can see. Disruption is, and has always been a problem, but banning laptops is not the answer. I could handle blocking wi-fi in lecture theatres.. that helps just a bit.
Student who want to use laptops legitimately should not be punished by those who don't. And as others have pointed out, students traditionally doodled or read books or slept so why should this be any different. I think some of the older lecturers are stuck in old ways which are inevitably counter productive. Laptops do more good than harm. Besides its up to the student to pass the exams and it is not the lecturers job to 'nanny' students.
Those who can, do. Those who cannot, sue.
I'm in a band and the one thing that really makes it hard to play well, or at least enjoy playing the show, is an unresponsive crowd.
I could be totally off base here, but I'm guessing that the prof's need feedback too. If they see every face in the classroom looking emotionless at their laptops, the prof's have no idea if anyone is listening at all. Obviously it's the students' money to burn etc. etc. But it would probably make it hell to teach a class to essentially nobody.
I went back to school 20 years later to get another degree, Tried taking notes on a laptop and went back to simple handwritten notes. Here's why: I found that I retained much more when I went back over my handwritten notes, then reorganized them on my laptop. Yes, it was more time-consuming, but I was effectively going over all the information twice and reinforcing what was taught. I was also keeping up my handwriting skills, something I believe is sorely lacking in today's youth.
I wonder how many students today just enter their notes on a laptop and forget about them until finals.
I see a lot of people commenting on how fast they need to type/write in order to take notes. I find this a little odd, because if you're taking down more information than you can easily handwrite, you're probably not taking notes properly in the first place.
The point of taking notes is to compress the information into a salient outline structure and then insert only the most important information. Just copying, verbatim, what a professor says isn't, in any real sense, "note taking". Note taking implies that you're selectively recording the parts of what the professor is saying that are most important. Just copying down everything is something else entirely, and is dreadfully inefficient, first because you can easily get the jist of what someone says without recording their exact wording, and second because it makes reviewing the notes mostly a waste of time.
If they wanna play WoW during class they should be allowed, as long as they don't disturb the ones who want to learn.
Why? They will almost always be disturbing people (anyone behind them, and anyone that can hear their computer's fans or keyboard/mouse presses). if they want to play WoW they can go to the common room, or just stay at home.
20-some years ago, I started my bachelor's degree at Ohio University. I ended up in Los Angeles working in the film & TV business as an editor where they really don't care if you have a degree or not.
Fast forward to now... Economy crash, writers' strike, production slow down... so I decide use that as an opportunity to return to college to finally finish a bachelor's degree in Visual Effects.
The classes are held in computer labs and because the systems are used for many different kinds of classes including web design and as generic open labs, they are connected to the internet.
There is nothing as annoying and distracting as someone sitting there working on their Farmville while the instructor is lecturing or while we are supposedly critiquing each others work. It leads to the instructor having to go over simple concepts multiple times due to students not paying attention which really pisses me off as it's wasting my time & money... Mommy & daddy aren't paying for my college classes... I am. We have a limited amount of time as it is... I want to get my money's worth by getting in as many concepts as possible--nott going over the same thing over and over and over because some idiot was tending to his crops.
Now chances are, these idiots who aren't paying attention in class would've found ways to not pay attention in class back in the pre-WiFi internet days, but for the most part, they would've been less distracting to other students who did want to pay attention. (They'd be doodling in a notebook or just sleeping.) If they were doing something that was distracting to other students, it would be much easier for an instructor to monitor and deal with... 'Take those headphones off,' 'stop talking back there,' etc.
These days, the instructor has a bunch of laptop lids pointed in their direction and the students could be doing anything from dutifully taking notes to running their virtual mob to reading Slashdot.
The point I'm eventually getting around to making is that these sorts of distractions that having full internet access in the classroom causes is unfair to the students who do want to pay attention.
I really don't give a shit if someone wants to waste their time and (parents') money by not paying attention in the classroom... but I get royally pissed when it wastes my time and my money.
Personally, if I was teaching I would have a policy in place where first time caught on the internet during a lecture or critique would get a warning, second time... auto fail.
But... I digress...
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I'm also a prof, and here's my take on it... I give lectures in a couple of different majors. The CS students all bring their laptops, the business students never do, and there are some some classes in between.
First off, I do not require attendance. In fact, I usually explicitly say: "if you want to read your email, play games, etc, please do not come to class". If you're in my class, I want you there because you intend to pay attention to the lecture.
Alarindris (in an earlier post) made a really good point: to make a lecture interesting, you need to be able to interact with the class. If everyone is heads down in their laptops, and asking them a question causes them to look up with an expression of "huh? what's going on?" - well, there is just no way to make the lecture work. Over the years, I have had a couple of groups like this - it is really, really awful.
Regarding note-taking: I have never seen a student take notes on a computer. Mostly they load up the slides I've provided (which contain some, but not nearly all of the content). What goes up on the board is developed interactively with the class, and inevitably involves pictures and diagrams - there is just no reasonable way to take notes like that on the computer.
A few students complain that I don't provide complete material to download - thus making note taking unnecessary. These are the same students who expect to be handed an "A" on the final, without actually having to study or do anything difficult. The point of a lecture is for the professor to ensure that the students understand a topic. The material presented changes based on feedback from the class. "Is that clear, or do we need another example here?" If another example, or an alternative explanation is needed, you make one up on the spot. You go faster or slower, show more or less detail, use fewer or more examples based on the students' comprehension of what you are talking about.
If you find yourself talking to the tops of everyone's heads, you have no source of feedback. Did they understand? Are they even listening? One poster on this thread said that it's the prof's own fault if the students aren't interested. The other side is: if the students don't give any feedback, the lecture is guaranteed to be boring - because there is no way to tailor the presentation to the audience.
If you have a really horrible prof (yes, I know some of those), don't take the class. If you have to take the class, save yourself the boredom and don't go to lectures. If attendance is required, life's a bitch, deal with it. Consider it practice for those really exciting business meetings you'll be attending throughout your professional life: if you don't pay attention when the boss is talking, you'll be walking.
All of which is a long way of saying: laptops in lectures are really pretty useless for the students. I wouldn't bother to ban them - too much fuss - but I can and do ban any sort of distracting activities.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
You don't learn much in college, except HOW to learn. The learning comes in grad school. Thus it's not the French degree that's important, but the completion of the degree proves that you have the skills/desires to complete the degree.
As far as them being totally worthless, my one semester of French in college has helped me talk to Haitian immigrants to diagnose their medical problems, so I say it is. Calling it totally worthless is like calling basic science research totally useless -there is something one can do with the basics of a good, solid education, regardless of what you do with it later.
..........FULL STOP.
I've been out of academia since '95 but back then professors wrote on the board (with the occasional overhead graph) and students wrote on paper. My girlfriend recently went back to school and almost every class is taught by powerpoint presentation which nearly begs the students to bring in their laptops. If you want to ban the laptop then ban the lazy practice of teaching by powerpoint.