Laptop Bans in Colleges

[jillian]

A generation ago, academia embraced the laptop as the most welcome classroom innovation since the ballpoint pen. But during the past decade, it has evolved into a powerful distraction. Wireless Internet connections tempt students away from note-typing to e-mail, blogs, YouTube videos, sports scores, even online gaming -- all the diversions of a home computer beamed into the classroom to compete with the professor for the student's attention.

Professors have banned laptops from their classrooms at George Washington University, American University, the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia, among many others. Last month, a physics professor at the University of Oklahoma poured liquid nitrogen onto a laptop and then shattered it on the floor, a warning to the digitally distracted. A student -- of course -- managed to capture the staged theatrics on video and drew a million hits on YouTube.

washingtonpost.com

I feel their pain. High school teachers can no longer compete with cell phones and Ipods. It's a cancer that no one seems to want to address. Even the best and the brightest barely hear a word the instructor says.

Comments?

Schools really should ban laptops from classrooms.... not that they won't use their blackberry's iPhones and other electronic devices to play with. As for the prof who committed computercide, i'm figuring he's going to have to replace that.

Life was so much easier when kids just doodled and passed notes.

 

[chanel]

Aint that the truth?

While I totally believe in personal responsibility, and that every student (hs or college) has the "right" the fail, the reality is that that these students are failing in record numbers. I honestly believe that for these prestigious schools to go to such extremes, it was not just a "few bad apples". When 50 percent of a class is failing, the professor looks bad. So they can "dumb down" the tests or try to get to the source. A better solution would be a localized wifi block so they can still take notes, but I don't know if they can do that.

 

[uscitizen]

WiFi / cell jammers are so much fun.

 

[chanel]

Could they do that for just one lecture hall?

 

[Diuretic]

Why would anyone want to take notes on a laptop anyway? Unless it's a class in how to take dictation surely the focus should be on attending to the instructor, thinking about what's being discussed and joining in class discussion?