A history professor at Yale talks laptops.
In seminars, laptops are still more harmful [than in lectures], serving as physical barriers that prevent a group of students from becoming a class.
UD has taken to calling the relationship between professors who allow and students who use laptops Mutually Assured Cynicism.
October 8th, 2010 at 10:12AM
I went to a scientific conference this summer and had my first experience of being an audience-member listening to a talk in a place where many people were surfing the web on laptops.
It WAS annoying. It was distracting, even though the talk was something I cared about and wanted to pay attention to.
It was also a lot harder to socialize in the between-times, because so many people were more interested in their screens or texting on their phones than they were in talking to other people.
October 8th, 2010 at 11:36AM
this is why I banned laptops from my sections this semester. If they have a screen in front of them, they’re not paying attention to anything that’s going on around them.
October 8th, 2010 at 4:06PM
What is the issue here, lap tops or the use of them?
I have to stand up for lap top users here because no one else seems to want to: did you really never play noughts and crosses with your pen and paper? Doodle? Draw cartoons of someone naked? Play hangman? Break the point of the pencil and endlessly sharpen it? I’ve seen all these behaviours in class.
In a seminar I use my computer to take notes. The wi fi is off, and it would never occur to me to play music. That is because I am interested in my work.
The tool isn’t the problem, it’s the user.
October 8th, 2010 at 5:49PM
Yes, it’s the user. But there are so many users who are abusing their laptops that they create a distracting environment for the non-users.