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The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

newyorker.com

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Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#31

Post by bsilvereagle »

akrolsmir wrote: post #9

UC Berkeley student here; laptop bannings are actually relatively common in lectures. I've seen professors actually stop their lectures to yell at some student in the back until said student puts his laptop away. A relevant point that the article failed to mention was, laptop/tablet/smartphone usage distracts not only the user, but those around him as well [1]. Just having such a device in view lowers the comprehensi…

> I've seen professors actually stop their lectures to yell at some student in the back until said student puts his laptop away.

I had a professor that would make the student using the laptop come up to the front of the room and finish giving the lecture. He said he picked it up from Nabokov.

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#32

Post by lartoa »

BruceIV wrote: post #16

One of the side points the author raised was interesting: namely, that there's a lack of good tooling for taking mathematical-notation heavy notes efficiently on laptop ... maybe some sort of Markdown with inline LaTeX (plain LaTeX is too much of a hassle to do paragraph/list formatting in). It shouldn't be technically difficult to build, it just oddly doesn't seem to exist yet.

In my experience, LaTeX is not really a worthy alternative to writing formulas by hand. Sure, you should absolutely use LaTeX for typesetting mathematical reports and the like, but LaTeX does not stand a chance against pen and paper when it comes to taking notes or doing calculations. The world needs tooling that is much more similar to writing formulas on a paper in its interface. At the moment, I also fail to see any benefit at all in using laptops in mathematics education.

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#33

Post by watwut »

jawns wrote: post #8

In the lower grades, I think a case can be made that during the time they are in class, students should not have any other demands on their time. In contrast, with college students, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that -- at least occasionally -- a student may need to "check out" from a lecture momentarily to deal with some pressing business, even if it means that he has to spend time later asking a classmat…

Most pressing mails can wait few hours and lecture will most likely end up after 90 minutes or sooner. Your critical bug will not be solved withing five minutes and campus newspaper's website being down for few hours is no big deal anyway. Finally, I would really like which school newspaper has so hot stories that you have to run to.

And if it is really so critical, they can send text message on your muted phone and you will have to leave the lecture anyway.

I'm not saying I want to ban laptops, just that your examples are very unconvincing. I get it, the class is very low priority to you, but if you are going to regularly fix bugs or write emails and then ask other to fill you in, you will be disturbing to others.

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#34

Post by TTPrograms »

tjr wrote: post #20
jawns wrote: post #8

In the lower grades, I think a case can be made that during the time they are in class, students should not have any other demands on their time. In contrast, with college students, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that -- at least occasionally -- a student may need to "check out" from a lecture momentarily to deal with some pressing business, even if it means that he has to spend time later asking a classmat…

For instance, maybe I'm in class, and I get an extremely important email and need to send an immediate reply. Maybe I'm a working-adult student and my babysitter has just IMed me. Maybe I manage the campus newspaper's website and someone just sent me a report of a critical bug that I need to deal with right away. This isn't strictly a reply to jawns, but it's on a related topic that I've wondered about. Fifteen years…

I don't think the issue is if we need to respond urgently, but rather if we want to respond urgently. Sure you can wait an hour until the end of lecture, but maybe you want to develop a capability and a reputation for putting out fires quickly. Do I really need to justify the value of this to the professor?

The question is if I'm paying for a lecture is it reasonable for them to mandate my own non-disruptive activities in lecture. I don't think so.

We also need to consider that professors are egotistical creatures (as all humans are), so they're going to oppose anything that detracts from the perceived value of their work. What's the balance here between improving student welfare and making professors happy?

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#35

Post by jcromartie »

jawns wrote: post #8

In the lower grades, I think a case can be made that during the time they are in class, students should not have any other demands on their time. In contrast, with college students, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that -- at least occasionally -- a student may need to "check out" from a lecture momentarily to deal with some pressing business, even if it means that he has to spend time later asking a classmat…

Isn't this what phones are for?

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#36

Post by watwut »

BruceIV wrote: post #22
nlawalker wrote: post #17

If instructors really wanted to raise the quality of their classroom environments, instead of banning laptops, they'd commit to posting all their lectures, slides and announcements online and tell students that if they don't want to be there in person that they don't need to be. Many people don't see the point in being physically present to hear someone talk and point at slides. Those that do, and aren't just attendi…

Because a good lecturer will do more than just read off his or her slides, and if they tell students the slides will be available than many of them won't show up, and will miss out good material. Video-recording the lectures is another thing entirely, but if the students are going to actually go to the trouble of watching them they may as well actually come to class where they can ask questions, get feedback, and get…

On the other hand, video can be stopped, rewinded and you have more time to think about the question and find the answer by yourself.

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#37

Post by jcromartie »

vlunkr wrote: post #21
akuma73 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what your phone is for.

I had a couple of professors that didn't allow cell phone use in their classes, and it was annoying, for all the reasons the original poster listed. I can understand not letting high school students use phones, but in college you are an adult with sometimes conflicting responsibilities.

That's a non sequitur. If an emergency comes up, and your phone rings, you leave the room and answer it.

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#38

Post by nknighthb »

tjr wrote: post #20
jawns wrote: post #8

In the lower grades, I think a case can be made that during the time they are in class, students should not have any other demands on their time. In contrast, with college students, I don't think it's unreasonable to think that -- at least occasionally -- a student may need to "check out" from a lecture momentarily to deal with some pressing business, even if it means that he has to spend time later asking a classmat…

For instance, maybe I'm in class, and I get an extremely important email and need to send an immediate reply. Maybe I'm a working-adult student and my babysitter has just IMed me. Maybe I manage the campus newspaper's website and someone just sent me a report of a critical bug that I need to deal with right away. This isn't strictly a reply to jawns, but it's on a related topic that I've wondered about. Fifteen years…

A few hundred years ago, nobody expected to go anywhere faster than a horse could take them there, why must we go faster now?

Life changes. If people don't like that, there are still some very nice remote forests they can go live in.

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#39

Post by nknighthb »

jcromartie wrote: post #37
vlunkr wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a couple of professors that didn't allow cell phone use in their classes, and it was annoying, for all the reasons the original poster listed. I can understand not letting high school students use phones, but in college you are an adult with sometimes conflicting responsibilities.

That's a non sequitur. If an emergency comes up, and your phone rings, you leave the room and answer it.

> If an emergency comes up, and your phone rings, you

fail the course.

Some are even known to demand everyone place their phones, very much powered off, in a box on their desk at the start of class.

Re: The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

#40

Post by DanBC »

canthonytucci wrote: post #27
akrolsmir wrote: post #9

UC Berkeley student here; laptop bannings are actually relatively common in lectures. I've seen professors actually stop their lectures to yell at some student in the back until said student puts his laptop away. A relevant point that the article failed to mention was, laptop/tablet/smartphone usage distracts not only the user, but those around him as well [1]. Just having such a device in view lowers the comprehensi…

> A relevant point that the article failed to mention was, laptop/tablet/smartphone usage distracts not only the user, but those around him as well [1]. Just having such a device in view lowers the comprehension of material. If you can't concentrate because the person next to you is on reddit you're going to have a hard time in an open office. Full disclosure, I only skimmed this paper, but I'd say this study has ver…

> If you can't concentrate because the person next to you is on reddit you're going to have a hard time in an open office.

Yes, open offices are a terrible idea because many people lose a lot of their productivity in those distracting environments.

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