Another slow-witted tech expert finally bans laptops from the college classroom. Turns out
Asking a student to stay focused while she has alerts on is like asking a chess player to concentrate while rapping their knuckles with a ruler at unpredictable intervals.
Turns out
[D]esigners and engineers have every incentive to capture as much of my students’ attention as they possibly can, without regard for any commitment those students may have made to me or to themselves about keeping on task.
Turns out
[M]ultitasking on a laptop poses a significant distraction to both users and fellow students and can be detrimental to comprehension of lecture content.
Turns out
Allowing laptop use in class is like allowing boombox use in class — it lets each person choose whether to degrade the experience of those around them.
Turns out
(To the people who say “Students have always passed notes in class”, I reply that old-model notes didn’t contain video and couldn’t arrive from anywhere in the world at 10 megabits a second.)
Turns out
Anyone distracted in class doesn’t just lose out on the content of the discussion but creates a sense of permission that opting out is OK, and, worse, a haze of second-hand distraction for their peers. In an environment like this, students need support for the better angels of their nature (or at least the more intellectual angels), and they need defenses against the powerful short-term incentives to put off complex, frustrating tasks. That support and those defenses don’t just happen, and they are not limited to the individual’s choices. They are provided by social structure, and that structure is disproportionately provided by the professor, especially during the first weeks of class.
Wow. Who knew.
Everyone. A decade ago.