Why I Ban Laptops in My Classroom | Hacker News Reader

Why I Ban Laptops in My Classroom

britannica.com

56 pointsrazorburn63 comments

I am in law school. I started school not bringing my laptop but that quickly changed.

My notes are better because I can edit without crossing out. I can insert, delete, and copy+paste.

I make bold, italics, larger print, etc.

My notes are in outline format from the beginning. There is no need for me to waste time by typing my notes at a later date. Trust me. In law school you need a very comprehensive outline to take a final. Handwritten notes won't get you there. Also, when it comes time to take the bar, you want your old outlines. They will get lost in print form.

Also, several classes require you to have the text of large volumes of statutes. I am talking 1000 pages of statutes per class. I have electronic copies of those. That saves me from having to carry extra books (not to mention the tress).

Also, I can search my notes, cases, and statutes to find the information I need. I am not flipping through a book with 1000 pages of statutes. I can simply search for "notice" in UCC Article 9 and it will bring me to every single statute where notice matters. Very awesome.

I also search my notes and outlines from classes I already took to serve as a refresher when outside issues arise. Very handy.

Of course the computer can be a distraction. But it is a damn good learning tool, too. When it is time to listen, I stop taking notes. When a student or professor says something important, I write it down, just as if I used paper.

I agree completely. The students that misuse the laptop are going to end up getting a grade they deserve, regardless. This professor is putting the burden on himself, when it should remain on the students.

FWIW, I rarely found classes valuable when I was in school; they mostly consisted of the professor (or TA, usually) reading us the textbook. I only went to class so that I wouldn't miss surprise exams. A laptop was nice to have so I could do something useful during the class periods that weren't exams.

That said, I did have a few interesting classes, and I never needed a laptop in those. I imagine that the author of the article teaches interesting classes, and I think it's a shame that people want to sit in front of him and buy shoes instead of listen.

Also, from the article:

The University of Chicago – as committed as it is to personal freedom and choice — has decided to block internet access in all its classrooms.

Is this true? That wasn't the case when I was there.

(Edit: aha, only the law school: http://news.uchicago.edu/news.php?asset_id=1329. I hope nobody tells them that 3G access for laptops is nearly free these days -- technical solutions to social problems never work.)

"FWIW, I rarely found classes valuable when I was in school; they mostly consisted of the professor (or TA, usually) reading us the textbook. I only went to class so that I wouldn't miss surprise exams. A laptop was nice to have so I could do something useful during the class periods that weren't exams."

It's hard to gauge whether this says more about your ability to contrast and draw imaginative connections between the material and yourself or whether this indicates that you went to schools that aren't very good.

that's a relatively cheap snipe.

any curriculum will contain material that just isn't interesting or useful to every student.

I went to a top-tier cs university, and a third of any given class was useless to any given student. It wasn't that the teacher was bad, it was just that the third was different for every student. Classrooms aren't perfect.

I never found classes valuable myself. You'd be surprised how amazing the ability to read is. Apart from anything else, the spoken word is very slow.

I'd agree, for the most part. Especially with Gen-Eds, I would just hope for powerpoints or go to the local notetaking service and grab a copy of the notes and just cram for the exams. I'd try to pick Gen-Ed's that were interesting, but the exams and everything else just made learning a chore.

Classes I actually found useful:

- Technical writing (english)

- This SOC class where all the teacher did was talk about real life and the lessons he learned. Amazing stories, so much advice still sticks with me to this day.

- My Enterprise Integration class which had so much cutting edge info I knew more than my co-workers on some things when I started a job. I still wish I had saved all the notes.

Aside that, the most important stuff I learned in college were all real-life lessons.

I don't like going to classes since either a)I haven't prepared, in which case I don't get much out of it, or b)I have prepared, and the class feels terribly slow - perhaps one point I had a question on will get addressed.

Classes where reading the book doesn't lower the information content to 0 are best.

Some classes I've gone to were as you describe: pontificating the textbook, thus rendering either the class or the textbook useless toward learning the material.

But some classes... or I should say, some instructors... bring life and interest to the material in a way that the textbook cannot, and for them I have much respect and value their efforts.

And, of course, this depends on the course, too. Not every course is based in a textbook, but rather in a text that isn't necessarily taught, but discussed.

And not every course /should/ be based on a textbook, either. Esp. not in the humanities. It's disgraceful when college Arts and Sciences faculty assign a textbook for PHIL 101 or Introduction to Plato. Why read a commentary on Plato when you can just pull The Republic off the shelf and read Plato's very words?

Many of these reasons are why I didn't take notes in most of my classes (for some it was obviously necessary).

PG used to get perturbed at me when I wouldn't write anything down when I had meetings with him. But really, it was because I wanted 100% of my attention focused on listening.

I was just reading something about how people have different ways of taking in information, and it can be a challenge trying to speak to someone that has a different method. For example people that learn by taking notes are generally bothered when they speak to someone that isn't taking notes, whereas people that learn by listening carefully are bothered when the people they speak to are constantly taking notes.

It's something I'll try to remember next time I'm in a meeting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learning_styles#Other_models

  One of the most common and widely-used categorizations of the various
  types of learning styles is Fleming's VARK model:

     1. visual learners;
     2. auditory learners;
     3. reading/writing-preference learners;
     4. kinesthetic learners or tactile learners

  Visual learners learn through seeing (think in pictures; visual aids
  such as overhead slides, diagrams, handouts, etc.). Auditory learners
  learn through listening (lectures, discussions, tapes, etc.).
  Tactile/kinesthetic learners learn through experience -- moving,
  touching, and doing (active exploration of the world; science
  projects; experiments, etc.).

Here's another excellent site for learning styles if you are interested: http://www4.ncsu.edu/unity/lockers/users/f/felder/public/ILS...

In particular, visual is opposed to verbal in this model, whether it comes from reading or hearing. This model seems to be more concerned on how the brain organizes the sensory input. VARK is more about cataloguing the types of sensory input.

I tend to be the same way. Taking notes whilst listening to someone speak interrupts my ability to absorb what they are saying.

That said, depending on the nature of the speech, a few keyword notes are harmless (and sometimes required), and it seems prudent to write things down in more detail as quickly as possible afterwards.

Something similar happens when I'm on a trip and bring my camera. I can take home either pictures or memories.

I try for both when I have a camera. The act of taking a picture is so short, and framing a picture is in sync with appreciating the view. For OMFG moments, the camera comes second, and can occasionally be missed. For rapid-fire events, I've found that the camera (DSLR) has caught things I've missed cuz the eye's only so fast and the "data buffer's so small...

I comprehend more deeply when I just listen, but remember better when I take notes. If I'm the only one listening, I'll often absorb one concept, then ask the speaker to pause for 30-60 seconds while I scribble down some notes.

  Main Entry:
    per·turb Listen to the pronunciation of perturb
  Pronunciation:
    \pər-ˈtərb\ 
  Function:
    transitive verb 
  Etymology:
    Middle English, from Middle French perturber, from Latin perturbare to throw into confusion, from per- + turbare to disturb — more at turbid
  Date:
    14th century
  1 : to disturb greatly in mind : disquiet 2 : to throw into confusion : disorder 3 : to cause to experience a perturbation

Thanks!

Honestly, I have a hard time concentrating on a presenter when I have a laptop with me. That's a large part of why I'm much more likely to be seen with an old-fashioned pen and notepad when something is actually important to understand.

I have a hard time writing legibly with pen and paper due to tremors and there are people with all sorts of disabilities like dysgraphia. I can only hope these professors can allow for exceptions to the rule.

I would be shocked if they did not, to be honest. It just seems like common courtesy to me to cater to each individual's needs. Even if a professor objects though, there are some very vigorously enforced laws which are intended to help people with physical or mental challenges. School administrations take them very seriously.

(I'm mildly dyslexic myself, so please don't take those terms pejoratively.)

Just speaking from prior bad experiences :) I used to use laptops back even in high school, where the teachers were fine with it but made it clear it was a privilege extended to us that could be revoked should there be any misuse. One teacher caught a kid playing a game in class and wouldn't let anyone in his classes use a laptop. I got pretty mad in the beginning, but the whole thing blew over before I had a chance to go see if I could get an exemption from that rule with a doctor's note.

I'm not sure how I feel about this. I know I've definitely been on IRC in class while taking notes (however, some of it was with fellow classmates...) and more, and I really do see how this can be a problem. But computers can be pretty helpful...sigh.

I've tried looking into ways to take notes without distracting other people, and I think my iPhone would be perfect if only I could use it with an external bluetooth keyboard or something.

I would think blocking wifi access would get ride of most of the reasons for banning laptops in this case.

wouldn't be toooo sure about that ;)

one thing I remember doing back in HS (and occasionally now in college) where there was no wifi at all was running an ircd on someone's laptop and creating a small ad-hoc wireless network so we could all chat on IRC at the same time. Since some classrooms were physically close, we had some people from other classes join in too.

And lack of network access won't stop anyone from playing offline games on their computer.

Agreed.

That's why I hedged by saying "most of the reasons". I agree that as people become more tech savvy things get tougher.

From my position, I see two root causes why this is the problem and they could be fixed (its what my venture is working on doing). The problem with laptops most notably is the fact that they have this screen. The screen more or less creates a barrier between the person and speaker. This is not a good thing, especially not in a classroom and its also disrepsectful to the speaker. The second is laptops that are not being used for education but rather, as the article writer suggested, for Instant Messaging or other various purposes. If, theoretically, the laptop was one that was specifically designed and built for use in the classroom by students on a day-to-day basis, the problems addressed in this article would not be an issue. However, because they aren't, many times students don't have adequate tools on their laptops, the tools that are there are time consuming and hard to switch between for doing multiple things at one time, and they aren't focused on anything educationally enriching.

[promo]That's exactly what my venture, EDunuity, is working to address.[/promo]

How you determine what tools the students need in the first place? I've used laptops heavily for almost all my classes for the past few years now (obviously I can't take a laptop to a ceramics class, for example) and the tools I use depends on the class.

For most classes I can get away with using textmate, voodoopad and word (yuck). However, for classes with lots of diagrams I can't easily reproduce on the computer, I'll take out the tablet and use it with voodoopad specifically. Another person using a laptop in my class just brings a digital camera and takes pictures. There was one class I had where someone else wanted to take notes with me, so we used google docs in class. But I don't do that in a CS class, where I usually just bring out my IDE of choice and start hacking away and occasionally take notes.

Just a thought.

Well, the determination was made partly on what I and my co-founder have both experienced (being we're both students, freshmen in college), and additional talking we've done with both teachers and students in various types of classes. We've also done a fair amount of reading from studies about the usage of laptops/tablets in the classroom and read opinion articles like these to observe the issues.

In your case, you're one of the students who has already made that digital jump over and has all the gear you need. You, being the geek that I'll assume you are (-don't take that as an insult, I am too...), got these tools and self taught them and are self disciplined in their usage. However, most students and most schools don't have this.

While my venture is specifically interested in K12, we are interested in college too. For most classes (a ceramics class could be an exception), you have your basic necessities and then some additional tools you could be using. That's what we're focused on in our works, is creating the basics in a way that can be easily and seamlessly used in classes so that every student has access to the tools and resources they need, and with a certain degree of personalization to fit the different needs of different people.

Awkward. I am in class right now.

It's the same with conferences. Have you ever given a talk to a group of people and more than half are looking at their laptops? It really makes you ponder all of the time you put into preparing your presentation.

With respect, maybe your audience is telling you to build a better presentation.

Nope, people have their laptops out at even the best speakers' talks. It's an addiction.

So do professors ban laptops because they genuinely want to help students overcome their addiction, or because the professors don't feel like they're getting the attention that they deserve?

The article answers this question.

Basically, students think they can multi-task (IM and listen to the lecture), but professors know that the students can't.

Of the classes I've taken within the past 4 years, all of the professors/instructors have placed their notes online. I figured that all classes were going this direction. I personally find taking (verbatim-ish) notes to be a big distraction.

Sad but true. I wish there was a way to have laptops be part of a positive teaching experience. Maybe if you had live chat rooms during the lecture it could make the class richer rather than more distracted.

IRC backchannel?

There are a lot of things that can benefit from a backchannel. Live event, conference, etc. Having a discussion between viewers can be really valuable.

With a laptop i could record the lecture while surfing the web and paying attention here and there as i always did.

With the audio recordings Im sure Id want to listen/study to the bullet points only. Thus, I'd create a program that did this and sell the audio cliff notes to my fellow classmates.

He should say laptops are optional...not outright ban them; let students do what is best for them. Have a row of laptop users ..row non laptop users.

I think banning laptops in class is a good idea. When I had my laptop in class I basically screwed around and looked up at the board occasionally to see if the professor had written anything on it. Turns out that's a pretty worthless way to take notes.

Then again, I get deathly bored of physical writing after about 2 sentences and half the time I can't even read what I wrote so I was more or less screwed either way.

I was never able to get much out of lectures in college. My ability to remember what people say out loud is practically nil. My handwriting was poor, and I could not write quickly. In any case, what was the point of my transcribing lectures instead of just reading material?

The only time I ever learned anything directly from a prof was talking to him in his office until I could put things into my own words.

Heh...if some douche wants to waste his tuition by screwing around with his laptop, that's between him and his wallet (although, under the TARP, it's arguably between him and my wallet...grrr).

My laptop stays shut during lectures and presentations unless I have the notes/slides on my screen or need to cross-reference something with another source. Anything else is too distracting for me.

At my university we had a no laptops policy on case study discussion. At first you kinda get annoyed about it, but you later realize how important it is. It is nice to pay attention and not have to worry about the guy next to you playing call of duty on his laptop. I also must say that I missed several things surfing the web. I think there should be a no text messaging policy as well in classes.

My cousin is a Philosophy professor and he says it's annoying to hear "tappity tap tap" all the time, even when he isn't saying anything or before class starts, you can tell people are using IM.

I say jam the wifi signal, set up an access point with a signal booster but don't have it attached to anything. I'm not sure if that will work but it's worth a try.

The simplest way to do it with standard 802.11 equipment would be to transmit at high gain on channels 2 or 3, 6 or 7, and 9 or 10. But there's lots of devices that cover that spectrum; it'd be cheaper to rip the transformer and magnetron out of an old microwave oven and energize that in the middle of the classroom. Use a pulse width modulator to step down the power by a few orders of magnitude if you're feeling generous enough to not cook your students.

*note: Do not actually do this.

When I worked in Network Engineering at my university, one of the capabilities being added to the classroom access points was the ability to disable the wireless network. Each classroom had a lectern with PC and monitor built in which offered access to control the various room facilities.

In situations where I want to take notes but don't want to distract myself or others, I keep my laptop on but with no backlighting (so the display's almost black). I can just stream what I want into there and edit it later. Often I'll grab audio as well.

When I was in school we didn't have laptops and we paid attention all of the time. OK, maybe not.

We used quill pens so we could only pick out a few keywords to scratch down to jog our memory: parchment was so expensive that we would rotate the paper 90 degrees after we had written in one direction and write across. You could normally make out both directions if you were careful. I think the harder it was to write the more we appreciated what we had. Not like students these days.

This is nuts. He wants his lectures to be absorbed the same way he did when he was in law school. Student don't need a laptop to tune you out.

How would you design lectures if you knew every student had a laptop and wifi? I can't believe we will be using pen and paper in even 30 years to laboriously transcribe lectures.

A lot of folks are writing in to explain how they didn't pay attention in class because they had a laptop. The argument seems to be that "I can't focus on class if I have access to a laptop--so no one in class should have one."

What happens when they get back to their desk: most jobs these days involve access to a PC/browser. It would seem like they would also be tempted to surf the web instead of work. Do they want to prohibit their co-workers (and competitors) from having access to the web? Should we go back to programming using a keypunch?

How/when do you develop the self-control to focus on the task at hand? Pencil and paper allow you to doodle and not pay attention. The challenge is not the affordances of the laptop but the inability to focus.

I teach English 101 at the University of Arizona and ban laptops for similar reasons. I'd prefer the students be engaged with the class and not suffer from the chronically divided attention they probably do elsewhere.

If you are teaching an important class for a major then I can understand it. But when you are teaching a class that everyone has to take to satisfy one little requirement, banning laptops is annoying.

In that case it sounds like laptops are not the real problem.

Good. Myself, I want to get rid of physical classrooms and go back to teaching, this time just online instead. Let's see what approach will prevail in the long run ;)

If people are banned from taking notes on laptops, then they should be banned from taking notes on pen and paper also.

That makes no sense. It's almost as if you did not read the article. [i did not either =p, but it still makes no sense.]

The laptop has much more of a chance of being distracting. Pen and paper can and does, such as old school IM (passing notes), but its about killing the slippery slope.

I personally support all bans on all (personal)technology in a classroom setting. This includes phones, laptops etc.

What happend to the Socratic method of teaching/learning? =(

Reminds me of an article in Byte magazine back in the 80s or early 90s. A student at Georgia Tech wrote his dissertation on a program he developed for a personal digital assistant program, hosted on a wearable computer. Partway through his dissertation defence, the examiners realized that he was using his dissertation to defend itself. Would you have voted his thesis up or down?

I would have voted him up if he was doing AI - the most impressive way to get a phd in AI would be to have your creation defend your thesis for you.

agreed, obviously if you are studying technology and specifically technological assistence interfaces/tools then those specific instances have a place in the classroom. I would think firearms are banned in classrooms right? What about at police academies or your local "weapons manufacturing trade school". See what I'm getting at?

I just see overwhelmingly more times than not students using aim/facebook/meebo/yahoo games/ during class. I'm sure there IS an argument to be made for people that actually use their laptops to "optimize" learning, but they are few and far between imo.

There is no question, laptop use is counter productive in most classes. Unfortunately, for the student there are many classes where a student might already know most/all of the material, but is still "forced" to attend the class. Then it is gaming, chatting, browsing time. In fact, teachers could use students' laptop use as barometer for how engaging their teaching methods are.

And ban them in many meetings too ...

What if your class is online?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com