Last week, I was captivated by stories of college professors at several big-name schools who banned laptops from lecture halls. These profs don't want to compete with Facebook, Twitter and shopping sites. I hear it all the time from college teachers, who say they hate it when students surf while they are trying to teach. I understand. I don't like it much either.
Only one problem. They are the customers. We, the teachers, are the employees. I figure that if I can't be interesting enough to compete with their computers, then I have a problem and it is not the laptop. My answer is, "get better material," not "ban the competition."
Now, if students are distracting others with their computers, that is a different matter. But it should be their choice. They are paying for the class. Professors argue that they are judged, in part, by the students' performance, so teachers have to do everything they can to help the students be successful.
Students argue that professors have no idea how important their computers are to them.
The Washington Post said Diane E. Sieber, an associate professor of humanities at the University of Colorado at Boulder, tracked
the grades of students she considered to be laptop-addicted:
"At the end of the term, their average grade was 71 percent, 'almost the same as the average for the students who didn't come at all.'
"Sieber believes that those students, in turn, divert the attention of the students behind them, a parabolic effect she calls the 'cone of distraction.'
"José A. Bowen, dean of the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University, is removing computers from lecture halls and urging his colleagues to 'teach naked' -- without machines. Bowen says class time should be used for engaging discussion, something that reliance on technology discourages.
"[Law Professor David D.] Cole surveyed one of his Georgetown classes anonymously after six weeks of laptop-free lectures. Four-fifths said they were more engaged in class discussion. Ninety-five percent admitted that they had used their laptops for 'purposes other than taking notes.'
"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," ' said 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 early attempts to ban laptops met resistance. In 2006, a group of law students at the University of Memphis complained to the American Bar Association, in vain. These days, the restriction is so common that most students take it in stride."
At Butler County (Pa.) Community College, Patrick Reddick wrote in The Cube: "The problem isn't the laptops; it's the students and the teachers.
"Students who want to be in class will at least try to pay attention, even if they have a laptop, a phone, eight different books on their desk, and David Blaine doing card tricks out in the hallway.
"Students who don't want to be in class -- who find the lesson unorganized, uninteresting, or unconnected from the real-world -- won't pay attention, even if they have no distractions.
"I wasn't there, but I assume not everyone paid constant attention in classrooms of the 1970s either.
"If students want to pay tuition, skip all of their classes and fail, they should be free to do that. If students want to pay tuition, come to class, distract themselves with Facebook and fail, they should be free to do that. The only line that should be drawn is when students start to distract others who have paid their tuition and are trying to learn."
So what do you think?
Weigh in with your comments. You can type them in the comments section while your students are asking you questions.
Additional resources: I love this line in Mike's comment, "You owe it...
