I feel like the conclusion is a bit off base: that students lack the self control to restrict the use of laptops laptops to class-related activities is somehow a sign that the problem is the laptop and not the students? I think it's very possible that younger generations have big issues with self-control and instant gratification. But I think it's wrong to think that laptops are the faulty party.
Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
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Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#22Why are lectures still being conducted in the classroom? Students shouldn't just be sitting there copying what the teacher writes on the board anyway. They should be having discussions, working together or independently on practice problems, teaching each other the material, or just doing anything that's actually engaging. Lecturing should be done at home via YouTube.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#23If students aren’t engaged, they aren’t going to become star pupils once you take away their distractions. Perhaps kids attend more lectures than before knowing that they can always listen in while futzing with other things (and otherwise, they may skip some of the classes entirely). The lecture format is what needs changing. You need a reason to go to class, and there was nothing worse than a professor showing slide…
> If students aren’t engaged, they aren’t going to become star pupils once you take away their distractions
That's a bit of a straw-man - nobody said anything about turning every student in to star pupils, it's a matter of degrees.
There is no question in my mind that a device capable of being online, using social media, and that is constantly pushing information at you is going to be a higher level distraction than a pen and paper. Reducing that level of distraction will be beneficial for many students, even if they only pay attention to 30% of the lecture instead of 15%, that's still an improvement.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#24I think this is a highly personal topic. As a student myself i find a laptop in class is very nice, i can type my notes faster, and organize them better. Most of my professors lectures are scatter brained and i frequently have to go back to previous section and annotate or insert new sections. With a computer i just go back and type, with a pen and paper i have to scribble, or write in the margins. Of course computer…
Some of us also have terrible handwriting, so taking notes by hand is out of the question. Though I will also surmise that they can also be a distraction.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#25Shocker. I remember being part of Clemson's laptop pilot program in 1998. If you were ever presenting you basically had to ask everyone to close their laptops or their eyes would never even look up.
I see this a lot in the workplace as well.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#26I had a laptop and left it home most of the time. And just stuck with taking notes with a pen and sitting upfront.
I took lots notes. Some people claim it's pointless and distracts from learning but for me the act of taking notes is what helped solidify the concepts a better. Heck due to my horrible handwriting I couldn't even read some of the notes later. But it was still worth it. Typing them out just wasn't the same.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#27Paying attention requires work, we need to purposefully use tools that are also distractions.
I definitely feel my attentiveness and focus dropped dramatically after computers were introduced into my work life. It's a shame that computers provide such a thin line between work and entertainment.
You can make that line thicker. You can create a new user on your computer specifically for work, with a restricted environment. You could use VMs or dualboot or something.
Personally, I'm very happy that we have devices that are capable of doing so many things.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#28>students spent less than 5 minutes on average using the internet for class-related purposes (e.g., accessing the syllabus, reviewing course-related slides or supplemental materials, searching for content related to the lecture)
I wonder if that could be skewed, because it only takes one request to pull up a course syllabus, but if I have Facebook Messenger open in another tab, it could be receiving updates periodically, leading to more time recorded in this experiment.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#29Students are also better off without forcible teacher's unions and federal curriculum mandates; no chance of hearing about that.
Maybe the best way out of this mess is vouchers.
If the schools are functioning, it should be obvious to them that the laptops are not working out.
Re: Students Are Better Off Without a Laptop in the Classroom
#30Disengaged and uninterested students will find a distraction; yes, perhaps a laptop makes it easier but my education in distraction seeking during middle school, well before laptops were even close to schools, shows that the lack of a computer in front of me was no obstacle to locating something more interesting to put my attention to.
The real solution is to engage students so they don't feel the urge to get distracted in the first place. Then you could give them completely unfiltered Internet and they would still be learning (perhaps even faster, using additional resources.) You can't substitute an urge to learn, no matter if you strap them to the chairs and pin their eyeballs open with their individual fingers strapped down, it won't do anything. It just makes school less interesting, less fun, and less appealing, which makes learning by extension less fun, less appealing, and less interesting.