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?'"

Comments

Re:good move

[ElectricTurtle]

This is not a strawman argument. It is the ethical core of what you are saying.

"Allowing me the option to fully tune out would have been a mistake" == "You want others to save you from yourself, at the cost of the freedom of your peers who may not share your deficiencies."

You are assuming everybody shares your deficiencies, shares them equally, and that they all need to be controlled because you feel you need to be controlled.

You're conflating systems of rule with freedom or lack thereof. This is false, and the real strawman in the room. If a democracy through tyranny of the majority decides x, y, z freedoms are denied, that doesn't make it less democratic, just less free. If an autocracy decides x, y, z freedoms are granted, that doesn't make it less autocratic, just more free. These systems don't decide freedom or lack inherently (except where suffrage and other inclusions are concerned), they only describe the structure from which authority to grant or deny freedoms proceeds.

I do not deny that a professor is an autocrat and can decide the terms under which his class is conducted (within rational limits and subject to review and redress through the established administrative hierarchy that is ultimately responsible to the students as paying consumers of a service). That does not mean that the reasoning cannot be questioned, and it certainly does not mean that the ethical analysis of other students or their anecdotal experiences are automatically correct and should be utilized as guiding principles!

Please take political science again, and a course in logic while you're at it.

Re:First Post

[Synn]

In a world where these students can, as another poster suggested, elect not to attend college, your idea works and works well. Unfortunately, this is not that world.

Total and absolute BS. Most college educations are completely worthless. Psychology, French Lit, History?

I'd say most people would be much better off financially if they skipped college and used the money that would've gone into that somewhere else.

Now take fields like engineering, law, computer science, and so on, those are totally great fields of study. But if you can't be bothered to pay attention during class then society would probably be better off with you not graduating in the first place. I don't want to drive on a bridge designed by someone who had to be made to stay off Facebook by his mommy professor during class.