Surfing the Web may soon disappear entirely from Georgetown [University] classrooms, as a growing number of professors enact policies either banning or discouraging laptop use during lectures and discussion sections.
For David Goldfrank, a professor in the department of history, the turning point came at the beginning of a World History II discussion section in 2007.
“I started with a directed question, and the student replied, ‘Wait a minute, please. I need to turn on my computer where I have my notes,’” Goldfrank said. “[ … As a professor,] I don’t want to know what is in your computer; I want to know what is in your head.”
… [Professor David] Cole claims that students who use their computers to take notes become stenographers rather than actually processing the information, and those who are surfing the Internet are simply not engaged.
… “I don’t have much self-control,” Cristina Cardenal (COL ’11) said. “When there’s a lull in conversation and I have my laptop … I want to go on the Internet.”
… “The few advantages, such as a student’s targeted looking up a disputed or unfamiliar fact during a lecture, could not come close to balancing the negatives,” Goldfrank said…
February 10th, 2009 at 7:26AM
I couldn’t agree more with the lack of intellectual engagement that laptops effect in the classroom. I teach two English classes at Georgetown, and I’ve banned laptops in both.
I’ve never caught anyone surfing the web while I’m holding forth on Twain or Poe, but the possibility of eschewing Huck Finn for Facebook is always there for laptop users. I know that books don’t glow like a computer screen, but I’m trying to show them that studying literature entails more than rote notetaking.
February 10th, 2009 at 10:31AM
I am afraid I have to disagree, or at least point out that it varies from course to course. I remember when electronic calculators received this level of attention, the argument was the calculators would prevent students from learning math. What I’ve seen instead is the addition of multiple years of Calculus in the high school curriculum that were not there in the past.
I post pdf’s of my notes to Blackboard before every lecture. I find that the students open up the pdf on 1/2 of their screen and a their notes on the other half. Rather then becoming stenographers, the students jot down what I say that is not already reflected on their provided notes. It seems to me they get a more complete set of notes with less stenography, and hence there is more interaction with me and the rest of the class.
We also have to accept a future where our students are constantly plugged in. Banning laptops will not prevent the creation of smaller and more intimately integrated wireless devices. Rather then protest this, we should probably consider how to use this to our advantages.
February 10th, 2009 at 10:44AM
I agree in this regard: The laptop/technology/plugged-in issue definitely variers from course to course, or between subjects. With literature (at least with my courses), students seldom need more than the book, a pen or pencil, and their ideas. I teach very discussion-heavy courses, which demands further engagement.
I also agree that, barring some technological backslide, future generations will be increasingly plugged-in. Considering the potential advantages of this is certainly a good idea, although I’m still concerned about students’ abuse of being plugged-in during class time.
This issue definitely isn’t going away any time soon, if ever.
February 10th, 2009 at 10:45AM
Correction: should be "varies" in the second line, not "variers".
February 10th, 2009 at 11:34AM
I disagree with Professor Cole. When I was a student without a laptop, I too could become a stenographer. And when my hand was tired and I was bored, I daydreamed. Quietly surfing the net in class is no different than daydreaming or staring out the window. – TL
February 10th, 2009 at 1:09PM
Of course it depends on the discipline and the way the course is being taught.
It also depends on the particular student. As long as people are not distracting others in the class – this would be web surfing among other things – couldn’t we just treat them like adults? Real classrooms do not have to be like Paper Chase episodes.
Who is to judge whether stenographers are extracting the most benefit from their class attendance? In the end it matters what is in the brain, not how it got there.