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Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop In the Classroom (scientificamerican.com)
Cindi May writes via Scientific American about new research that "suggests that laptops do not enhance classroom learning, and in fact students would be better off leaving their laptops in the dorm during class." From the report: Although computer use during class may create the illusion of enhanced engagement with course content, it more often reflects engagement with social media, YouTube videos, instant messaging, and other nonacademic content. This self-inflicted distraction comes at a cost, as students are spending up to one-third of valuable (and costly) class time zoned out, and the longer they are online the more their grades tend to suffer. To understand how students are using computers during class and the impact it has on learning, Susan Ravizza and colleagues took the unique approach of asking students to voluntarily login to a proxy server at the start of each class, with the understanding that their internet use (including the sites they visited) would be tracked. Participants were required to login for at least half of the 15 class periods, though they were not required to use the internet in any way once they logged in to the server. Researchers were able to track the internet use and academic performance of 84 students across the semester.
participants spent almost 40 minutes out of every 100-minute class period using the internet for nonacademic purposes, including social media, checking email, shopping, reading the news, chatting, watching videos, and playing games. This nonacademic use was negatively associated with final exam scores, such that students with higher use tended to score lower on the exam. Social media sites were the most-frequently visited sites during class, and importantly these sites, along with online video sites, proved to be the most disruptive with respect to academic outcomes. In contrast with their heavy nonacademic internet use, students spent less than 5 minutes on average using the internet for class-related purposes (e.g., accessing the syllabus, reviewing course-related slides or supplemental materials, searching for content related to the lecture). Given the relatively small amount of time students spent on academic internet use, it is not surprising that academic internet use was unrelated to course performance. Thus students who brought their laptops to class to view online course-related materials did not actually spend much time doing so, and furthermore showed no benefit of having access to those materials in class.
participants spent almost 40 minutes out of every 100-minute class period using the internet for nonacademic purposes, including social media, checking email, shopping, reading the news, chatting, watching videos, and playing games. This nonacademic use was negatively associated with final exam scores, such that students with higher use tended to score lower on the exam. Social media sites were the most-frequently visited sites during class, and importantly these sites, along with online video sites, proved to be the most disruptive with respect to academic outcomes. In contrast with their heavy nonacademic internet use, students spent less than 5 minutes on average using the internet for class-related purposes (e.g., accessing the syllabus, reviewing course-related slides or supplemental materials, searching for content related to the lecture). Given the relatively small amount of time students spent on academic internet use, it is not surprising that academic internet use was unrelated to course performance. Thus students who brought their laptops to class to view online course-related materials did not actually spend much time doing so, and furthermore showed no benefit of having access to those materials in class.
https://www.google.com/#q=things+i%27ve+seen+students+doing+in+class
Although computer use during class may create the illusion of enhanced engagement with course content, it more often reflects engagement with social media
Other than businesses wanting to sell more laptop computers or students wanting to surf the web during class, who ever claimed computer use during a lecture or seminar would enhance engagement with course content?
Other than businesses wanting to sell more laptop computers or students wanting to surf the web during class, who ever claimed computer use during a lecture or seminar would enhance engagement with course content?
FAR too many people think it will help. In some cases it can but the problem is that people think these cases generalize more than they actually do. It's just a modern day version of letting students use a fancy calculator as a crutch to get answers rather than having to do the heavy lifting to actually learn from first principles and gain the intuition that results.
Plus for too many students the computer is just a HUGE distraction. Why would a kid pay attention to a boring history or math class when they could be doing something fun on social media?
I'm sure some billion dollar social media companies will be able to quietly cast doubt on these "absurd" and "backward" conclusions.
Sounds to me like the problem is having an internet connection in class rather than laptops themselves, since the findings focus on time wasted on social media, shopping, other non-academic uses. I used a laptop in class in the late 90s/early 2000s for taking notes on, instead of on paper, but it wasn't really a distraction because there was no internet connection (Wifi wasn't ubiquitous in classrooms back then). It was just the way I took notes.
This is too obvious to former students. It's college though, like the real world if you don't put effort in and fail it is your own fault and your own money and time you are wasting, unless you are a socialist getting college for free.
Students with self-discipline and an interest in academic success perform better than students without self-discipline!
Here's an interesting anecdote as a West Point alumni - cadets all had computers starting in the very late 90s. In 2001, USMA switched from issuing towers to issuing laptops, which cadets took to class. The laptops took the place of hand-written notes (of which everyone was expected to keep volumes), and paper lab books (of which there were many - and costly).
They worked fine. There was also disciplinary action if caught using your laptop during class for non-class related work. Then again, West Point is extremely academically rigorous, and you get kicked out if your GPA drops too low.
Point being - half the kids in college are just there because that's what they were supposed to do next - they're not trying to better themselves, so given a chance to fuck around, they're going to entertain themselves. There's a lack of discipline. If people want to see college kids performing better at academic pursuits, then colleges are going to have to invest in some.
When I was studying computer science in school, most of our classes were in lecture halls, and you'd have a lab portion on a different day. I got a PowerBook for my last couple of years, and was able to type my notes, since I can type way faster than I can write., so it worked out pretty well for me. Of course, Facebook wasn't a thing yet, and I detested MySpace.
Now that I'm teaching, we're in a classroom with computers. Since so many students just goof off on the computers during the lecture, I decided to start flipping my classroom. I record video lectures and then have them work on their labs & homework during class time. It has worked out pretty well, especially for the good students, and it removes some excuses for the bad students.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
That's interesting, so the kid who can only communicate through a sip & puff connected to a laptop is better off without a laptop in the classroom? Oh that's an exception? What about the kid with a processing speed deficit who performs their work 3 times faster on a laptop? Another exception?
Of course there are exceptions. But when you're talking about requiring a computer for communication with classmates and the instructor due to some physical challenge, then that obviously doesn't fall into "being distracted by YouTube fidget spinner videos during class."
What about a well run classroom where the teachers is supervising what the children are doing, the same way as my teachers called me out when I was doodling at my desk instead of getting my work done?
I'm pretty sure TFS quote (from the first line, for crying out loud. You didn't even need to read the entire summary!): " in fact students would be better off leaving their laptops in the dorm during class" means that we're not talking about children, here. I don't know any elementary or high schools that have dorms, so we're looking at college/university level for this study. I don't know any college/university profs that supervise what their students are doing during class. They give the lecture, and if you haven't learned to pay attention and prioritize your own work habits by the time you've graduated high school, tough luck for you.
Like most things involving humans, sweeping conclusionary statements about the educational process are myopic and ill advised, because educational methods should be shaped to the PEOPLE involved. What works for one teacher/student/class will not work for another teacher/student/class combination. That's why teachers are professionals, the same way as IT professionals are, they shape their approach to the situation at hand. (and before someone makes a disparaging remark about teachers, allow me to point out we all know IT people who should be in another profession too)
Min
Also, like most things involving humans, people who don't read and understand the information they're given are usually ill prepared to comment on said information. Similar to the YouTube-surfing students in this study, actually. I'd have expected more from someone with such a low UID.
"City hall" in German is "Rathaus" Kinda explains a few things......
When I went back to do my Masters, I didn't use any technology in the classroom. Instead, I printed out a copy of all of the lecture notes (the lecturers made them all available to download) and brought them with me with a pencil. I was then able to follow the notes along with the lecturer and make any additional notes I needed in the margins, highlight passages, etc.
I found this worked very well for me. I knew any sort of tech in my hand would lead me to being distracted (as it always the case when sent on courses for work), so I kept it simple and old school.
Sometimes these ways are the best. Technology is great it many many areas of life, but there are some areas where the lack of it can be more beneficial - lectures being one.
(One lecturer would actually tell anyone with a laptop or tablet out to put it away in their bags!)
Granted it's been well over a decade for me since college, but it's the same story with technical conferences and work meetings. Inevitably you will run into people who spend 60 minutes saying something that should take 5-10. Allowing the audience to bring a laptop to do other stuff when this happening is the socially acceptable solution we've come up with as a society to let the lecturer save face while letting the audience quietly stop listening to them.
Perhaps it would be better in the long run if we were honest and just booed or walked out so lecturers were more forcefully encouraged to get better. I'm not sure it would really work that way though. It's already scary enough presenting in front of a lot of people. As it is, if you've got an audience full of people staring at their laptop instead of staring at you, it's them gently telling you that what you are saying is less important to them than whatever is on their screen.
Frankly, I see ZERO use for students to have cellphones, laptops, or tablets in school.
There is nothing they need to do that can not be done better with paper, and just having a few computers available in the room for research etc.
Constant possession of devices is NOTHING but a huge distraction in the classroom and contributes to the sick addiction behaviors I see in nearly an entire generation.
Not to mention that many schools put these devices in the hands of children and have no clue how to manage or police their use to only appropriate purposes.
The rush to add tables,laptops etc into classrooms is one of the biggest mistakes in educational history.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
"Thus students who brought their laptops to class to view online course-related materials did not actually spend much time doing so, and furthermore showed no benefit of having access to those materials in class."
That's a separate and interesting finding, that I wish were highlighted more. It's not just that students are using their laptops for non-class-related activities instead of learning, and then suffering academically (duh!), but that *even if* they have access to class-related content they still do not benefit.