… I have two classes involving PRS, and the bugs still haven’t been worked out. In fact, last week, the system did not work at all for my chemistry class, and in biology it took more than a few minutes until the system was up and running properly.
So, does this spending of extra money and effort mean enhanced learning? The PRS is supposed to let professors see if their lecture has “stuck” with students, and if not, adjust accordingly. It also stimulates classroom participation, but listening and interacting is still in the hands of the students. With the introduction of PRS, the focus is shifted from actually understanding the material to making sure you get an answer into the system to get credit for the day.
I see how the PRS is effective in bringing people to class, but having to sit through an entire lecture just to press a button is a bit ridiculous. The PRS does not enhance my ability in the classroom, it just makes me resent having to lug around another piece of technology while wasting time to get it to work when the professors should just be teaching. I have a hard enough time getting my lazy self to go to class. I don’t need to have to remember to bring this random clicker.
Luckily, most professors drop about 10 PRS grades over the span of the entire semester. This amounts to a lot after one takes into account how many times the system collapses on itself and forces professors to give out free points. Professors also find other ways to counteract the failings of PRS. In my biology class, the professor gave a survey for extra PRS points, and I expect other professors do the same. Professors try to accommodate … the faulty system, but it doesn’t always work.
… Fred Zinn, Sr., designer of instructional technology at the Office of Informational Technology at UMass, described possible reasons behind trouble with PRS reception in series of blogs. Although very helpful, the blogs suggest that incorporating PRS into a course is a huge burden.
According to Zinn’s blogs, PRS could be adversely affected by its receivers being too close to laptops, low batteries in the remotes of the students, and more than 200 students using the same receiver. The blogs also report faculty losing data by minor mistakes when using the system.
The web page suggests that instructors having difficulty should set up a one-on-one consultation with the Instructional Media Lab. Professors already have enough on their hands, it isn’t necessary to bog them down with even more.
As class sizes continually get larger, devices like the PRS will become more prevalent, even though this contributes to their failures. The only method of teaching proven to be glitch-free is writing notes on the board and taking notes with a pen and paper, and that is what we should be doing…
PowerPoint, laptops, clickers – universities cynically load them on “as class sizes continually get larger.” And it looks as though students are beginning to get the picture.
Are you and your professor being turned into robotic nullities?
Click A for Yes.
I remember sitting in the back of Physics 1301 and 1302 and seeing multiple people watching whole movies in class which was pretty distracting.
A University of Minnesota student waxes nostalgic while commenting on “Laptop Dystopia,” an opinion piece in the campus newspaper.
The piece just came out. UD expects other commenters will join this one to add their own memories… But it’s not just the sweetness of old college days filled with watching other people’s movies that UD wants to evoke; it’s the phenomenology, if you will, of the wired classroom theater.
The closer we can get to the way it actually looks and feels in real time to have twenty screens pressing up against you on which endless random images jigger for fifty minutes, the better.
We need to understand the laptop in the classroom — not as an abstraction, as in Everyone knows that personal computers facilitate learning! but as a physical, intellectual, emotional reality.
The opinion piece is particularly good on the emotional part.
[I]t’s time to stop lying to ourselves. If all you’re doing is taking notes, by all means, carry on. But if you’re spending precious class time playing solitaire or checking Facebook, I’m losing my patience. And I’m not the only one.
In talking to students on campus about the issue of laptop misuse in class, I uncovered the root of the problem. “I check my Facebook during class, but I’m only hurting myself. If you choose to stare at my computer screen, that’s your problem,” said a sophomore. When those words rolled off her tongue, I had an epiphany. Classroom Internet surfers aren’t trying to bother anyone; they just think they’re invisible — or, rather, that they have every right to do as they please.
… [S]tudents aren’t always comfortable exercising what looks like control over their peers, and I don’t blame them. Though I’ve been an “adult” for quite some time, I’d rather people feel good about me while I sit and grimace internally than fight for my right to a clear visual field. Sad but true.
Come to the University of Minnesota and fight for your right to a clear visual field!
Good come-on for high school seniors.
The writer is describing that social reality, that thing, you sometimes see on subway cars and places like that … A person is behaving badly, annoying and maybe even alarming fellow passengers, but no one intervenes… Everyone sits there like sheep, trapped, and there’s no…
There’s no professor! There’s no one in the car leading passengers in some communal activity… Everyone’s scrunched down in their seat doing their thing – iPod, cellphone, Bible, laptop – and the conductor is some invisible presence way up there in car #1…
“Elementary school kids are better at policing themselves than we are,” said a student who works as a school bus driver. “All I have to do is look in the rear-view mirror and they tell each other to sit down and shut up. We, as adults, are afraid to question each other’s values.” She’s absolutely right, but we have to move past this. Our education is wildly expensive, and admissions are increasingly competitive. If we don’t speak up, the alternative is craning our necks in a front row seat or spending 75 minutes battling a dwindling faith in humanity.
“I’m the first one in my family to go to college, and I take it very seriously,” said a senior. “When I see someone surfing the Internet in class I get angry, like this opportunity means nothing to them.” Even if it were feasible to tune out the flashing light of scrolling screens, the sheer effort necessary to ignore such distractions breeds bitterness that detracts from the learning process. Other consequences can be purely subliminal.
“Extracurricular Web surfing sends a signal to everyone else in class that whatever is going on is unimportant and not worth attending to. Even subconsciously, this can influence others to zone out and become disengaged,” said Ben Denkinger, an instructor in the psychology department. Boredom is a demon that lurks in even the most fascinating lectures, but that’s no excuse to wage war on your classmates’ peripheral vision or to slowly erode your mental capabilities.
Right, so it’s more like a bus, where we can see the driver. Only now that we’re not children anymore, a strange ethos prevails in which some passengers ignore the driver in contemptuous and socially destructive ways, while other passengers, grimacing internally, afraid to question the others’ values, do a slow bitter burn and struggle with a dwindling faith in humanity.
What a triumph for the professor. I try to ensure that my students seethe with rage and lose their faith in humanity while I teach.
With many professors using Blackboard and Powerpoint presentations during their lectures, it becomes difficult to take notes in a notebook, look at visual aids and listen to the professor lecture, some students said. “You constantly have to take notes while looking at other stuff. So it’s easier to take notes on a laptop,” said Katie Curren, a senior journalism student.
Blackboard, Powerpoint… maybe you’re also texting back and forth on your phone. Not a pretty picture…
I mean, nothing but a picture, really. You’re jumping from screen to screen to screen, capturing a blur of an image here, a rush of language there.
You gotta figure the first thing to go is the actual meaning of anything the professor’s saying. That’s why you’re passively transcribing all of her words on your laptop.
Seton Hill professor Mike Arnzen puts his texting policy in the course syllabus: If students place his class in the background by texting, he marks them as absent.
“Because they’re not attending,” explained Arnzen, 42, chair of the school’s division of humanities.
… says it all – smartly, concisely. Good writer.
Well, he doesn’t say it all. He forgets to add that laptops are a lazy professor’s best buddy. Babysit the kiddies by clicking on the tv.
… As the director of the University of Georgia’s New Media Institute and a professor in the Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication, Scott Shamp said he’s often dismayed to present a lecture to a hall filled with students, few who can seem to tear their attention away from their laptops or cell phones long enough to hear what he has to say.
Shamp has gotten used to the trend, but it’s still hard to look around the room and see so many students looking at their cell phones and typing on them.
Still, Shamp opts to look on the bright side of the situation.
“What’s the real difference between them doing that and writing in a notebook?” he said. “For me, writing in a notebook is almost a validation of the things I’m saying…”
Yes, even the paid cheerleaders are dismayed… Luckily, though, it turns out there’s no difference between surfing the internet and writing in a notebook…
From a panel at Harvard the other night on technology in the university classroom:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology social studies of science and technology professor Sherry Turkle said technology-based multitasking can have negative effects on the learning process.
She also said students need to be in control of distractions in order to absorb what they are taught in the classroom.
“When students text in class and keep laptops open, they learn less,” she said…
Which is more or less what UD just said to the ABC guy who came to her office to film her talking about her laptop ban.
A completely charming opinion piece in the Texas Tech newspaper. It’s written Guy Style. UD loves Guy Style.
Of course, Scathing Online Schoolmarm makes a few corrections, etc.
*******************************
Most of us students have all [Drop all] had a class or two where the professor was pretty lenient on the idea of students using their laptops to take notes. While some do use their laptops during class with proper self control, I believe I could accurately state most do not. [Drop I believe I could accurately state]
A couple weeks ago [I like the way he doesn't write A couple OF weeks ago... There's a chatty, relaxed, loping along feel to this prose that's very attractive.] I was sitting in class trying to pay attention to my lecture [Drop to my lecture] when I caught myself constantly looking over the shoulder of a fellow [Drop fellow] classmate who had brought his laptop to class that day. Most of the time I am not distracted by the usual Facebook addict flipping through Halloween photos of their 2,000 friends. However, this student was engaging in a different online obsession: blackjack.
This was very distracting for someone like me who also likes to try my luck every once in a while. Not knowing this student, I found myself wondering if he was staying true to the book by practicing basic strategy techniques such as doubling down on 11, splitting aces and eights or holding on soft 18.
After several bad beats, I shifted my focus back to my professor. Nevertheless, I could not stop thinking about Vegas and the bestselling book “Bringing Down The House,” which was the basis of the movie “21.” [The stuff on blackjack is great.]
… We are all aware of how short our attention span is relative to the amount of time of professors’ lectures. Is being able to type your notes in class worth the added amounts of [Drop amounts of] distractions [Write distraction - singular.] you bring to yourself and others?
I rarely see students on computers fully exert themselves in the topics being discussed by their professors. … When there is no interaction between students and professors the entire class is boring. Professors want students to ask questions and participate in lectures to show students are paying attention and at least trying to learn the material.
It is like when a girl asks a guy a sports question. The guy instinctually [instinctively would be better] wants to prove his masculinity by providing as much knowledge on the subject as the girl is willing to listen to. Professors are the same way. They want to provide any additional information so we can fully understand the subject matter [The analogy is echt-Guy.].
On another note, I believe [Drop all that; start with Professors...] professors take notice of students who do not ask questions or participate in lecture to the extent of not caring to learn their name or show sympathy toward poor performance on exams. [Altogether an awkward sentence. Too wordy -- the writer has that problem in general, as you can see from all my suggestions that he drop stuff -- and it's not clear to whom their refers.]
Reasons such as these should be example enough to discourage those from bringing computers to class when they are not required. [Drop this whole sentence.] Not only do you [Drop; maybe begin With laptops you...] heighten the level of temptation for your mind to wander, [and] you rarely learn things that are [Drop that are.] not test material. This may be a revelation, but some students go to class to learn things that are not going to be on the test. [Drop whole sentence.]
I’m sure some will not agree with my position that students should be barred from bringing laptops to class when they are not necessary. I accede to the argument of [Drop everything that precedes typed.] typed notes being much easier to study and follow along with than those that are hand written. [Rewrite: Typed notes may be easier to study and follow along with than hand written, but typing your notes after you hand write them in class is a good way to study. Drop the rest of this paragraph.] However, typing your notes after you hand write them in class is a good way to study without putting much stress on your brain.
Students should dissuade themselves from bringing their computers to class out of respect for your classmates and professors. We all know your schedule is very busy and you cannot possibly find the time outside of class to check your e-mail or Facebook. However, please be courteous to others who are there to learn with minimal distractions. [Drop the last two sentences; the sarcasm of the second doesn't quite come off; and, again, it's too wordy. Simply end the piece with the first sentence of this paragraph, changing your to their.]
Taipei Times
The president of the nation’s top university yesterday conceded that a poor attitude to learning was common among Taiwanese students.
Approached for comment after National Taiwan University’s (NTU) 81st anniversary ceremony yesterday, NTU president Lee Si-chen (李嗣涔) said he accepted National Central University (NCU) professor Daisy Hung’s (洪蘭) criticism of NTU students because what Hung highlighted was a common phenomenon among students.
Hung, director of NCU’s Graduate Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said in an article published recently that during an inspection visit at NTU’s College of Medicine, she saw students arriving late for class, dozing off, eating instant noodles or drumsticks, watching TV on their laptops or sending text messages during class.
… While Lee was addressing the ceremony, a number of students in attendance were caught on camera dozing off, having breakfast, playing games on their cellphones or reading comic books…
… you start to get militant. Here’s the Boston College student newspaper editorial board.
[A]n overload of technology in the classroom has become a hindrance rather than a help to the learning process and that a return to the basics of teaching and note taking methods would benefit all.
All too often, laptop screens flash Facebook news feeds, the latest from “The Sports Guy” on ESPN.com, or the newest headlines on The New York Times. These online activities are a distraction not only to the participants, but also to those in the surrounding seats.
The issue of technology abuse is happening both in the desks and behind the podium. Increasingly, professors are relying heavily on teaching aids such as PowerPoint instead of the classical and traditional method of lecturing. A professor’s use of technology in the classroom, if not utilized properly, can create a teaching crutch that may be indicative of a larger wound. Appropriate teaching with technology is possible, but it can only be undertaken and utilized by the professors who are already skilled and excellent communicators.
Concerns about the overuse of technology in the classroom have created a new and vocal “teach naked” movement spearheaded by educators like Jose Bowen at Southern Methodist University. Additionally, research presented in both The Chronicle of Higher Education and the British Educational Research Journal suggests that students are more disengaged when computers are used in the classroom, and it is the lively debate and round-table discussions with peers that they found most valuable and memorable.
If this is an issue for students watching a PowerPoint, just imagine the additional negative effects of retreating behind a personal computer screen.
Some may argue that taking notes with a computer allows one to be more thorough, as most of us can type faster than we write. In reality, however, laptop note-taking prompts students to mindlessly type word-for-word what professors say or project in a presentation. With a notebook, students are forced to process what the professors say, to fashion ideas in their own terms, to paraphrase. Computer note-taking provokes regurgitation; manual note-taking provokes thought.
[W]e as students need to consciously make the decision to set aside our Facebooks or “farms” during the time we spend in lectures.
It’s a sad sad situation… Though I’m sure we’ll be able to find some stuff to laugh about… Like…
Like the fact that many universities have committed gazillions of dollars to high-technifying every second of class time — making laptops mandatory onaccounta they’re so great; making everybody buy cartloads of clickers — and now students are in rebellion.
Like the fact that universities are going to have to start trotting out their technospecialists on staff to give speeches to the students about how it’s actually obviously in their best interests to be taught by technoids instead of people… Latest thing and all… you won’t be ready for the big bad world out there if you’re not a technoid too…
But the students won’t listen and they’ll keep getting more naked in the classroom and insisting on their professor being naked and the school will keep issuing the professor more techo-clothes and putting the professor in more how-to-teach-like-a-technoid workshops…
When all that technology outlay turns out to be wasted money… When students become human beings and professors become technoids… Well, it’ll be fun to watch is all I’m saying.
Opinion piece, University of Maryland Diamondback:
… [E]very professor, both future and incumbent, [should] be required to take a technology proficiency assessment prior to the start of the semester to make sure he or she understands the use and functionality of the technology used both in and out of the classroom. This assessment will ensure professors are well informed of these technologies and can easily navigate through multimedia extensions — a Professor 2.0, if you will.
Before Dr. Stonewall Jackson has a heart attack, this assessment will in no way prevent a professor from lecturing; failing the assessment will simply result in a mandatory classroom technology workshop..
A reporter from the George Washington University student newspaper came by today and asked me questions about my no laptops thing. To prepare for the interview (UD prepares) I read Georgetown Law professor David Cole on the subject. He bans laptops for two reasons:
1. They turn students into stenographers rather than note-takers.
2. They distract the student with the laptop, who spends a good deal of time using it for non-class purposes; they also distract students who aren’t using laptops but can’t help looking at the screens around the room, which might be showing basketball games, porn films, etc.
The GW Hatchet article about this should come out on Monday; if I’m quoted, I’ll link to it.
Meanwhile, here’s some weird shit.
… Ohio State University law professor Douglas A. Berman isn’t bothered by what his students do in class. If students want to play poker or watch porn during class, so be it, he says, though he knows his opinion is out of the mainstream.
“I have students who don’t come to class. I have students who are paying attention and say dumb things. But so be it,” Berman says.
Berman’s only concern is when one student’s behavior distracts another’s learning experience. It is a lesson he learned all too well when sitting in on a colleague’s evidence lecture during the March NCAA basketball tournament.
“I noticed a student’s laptop with the basketball scores on the screen,” he says. “I got distracted looking at the scores.”
He doesn’t think a student watching porn distracts other students? And… I dunno… the whole I don’t care what they do rhetoric makes me wonder… The way he says it – it sounds like a boast. So take the porn — what’s that going to turn into? Say you’ve got five guys in the back of the lecture hall clustering around a naughty movie, plus a bunch of others scattered about pleasuring themselves on private screens… What’s that gonna be like? Heavy breathing, orgasmic groans. But so be it.
