The case for banning laptops in the classroom.

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 classmate to fill him in on what he missed.

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 is all the sort of stuff I encounter regularly in the working world, and I don't think it's unreasonable to think that college students encounter it, too.

Being able to keep open a laptop to deal with things like this is a lot less distracting than having to step outside the lecture hall to take an urgent phone call.

Yes, putting away the laptops might slightly increase students' abilities to soak up the material, but (sorry, professors) sometimes the class you're sitting in is not your top priority, and sometimes that's OK. I occasionally had to skip class to chase down a hot story for the school newspaper, and I don't regret it a bit. So long as the student is using the privilege responsibly, I say let 'em keep the laptop open!

Hyperbole sure, but I was an on class student who paid for distance learning because I preferred the freedom to take the class on my time, on 2x speed, and with the ability to pause and look things up. It was never worth it to go back to class.

It begs the question: maybe it's the teaching method, and not the tool.

The problem is the lecture!

Teachers who don't engage students -- and lecturing rarely engages anyone -- push students away from material they don't care about. If students are engaged and laptops impede them, they'll put them away themselves. If you didn't engage the students, no amount of banning things they care about more than being lectured at will make them care.

If you have to ban something, ban the lecture and teachers who rely on lecturing at the expense of empathy and compassion for students.

Students are people like you and me. We use laptops in our work when they help and put them away when they don't. If we want students to learn about the world and how to succeed in it, let them work like we work, solving problems like we solve. Experiential, project-based learning does this automatically, at least with effective teachers. Lecturing doesn't. If you had a job you couldn't quit where your manager lectured at you all the time you'd get out your computer too.

HN just had a thread -- https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7739378 -- on the problems with lectures based on a Science Magazine article, "Lectures Aren’t Just Boring, They’re Ineffective, Too, Study Finds.” Here is my blog post with related notes from that thread -- "Why I avoid lecturing when I lead and teach" http://joshuaspodek.com/avoid-lecturing-lead-teach

I agree with the comments about lectures being bad (usually) and teachers needing to engage with students, but electronic distractions also make it harder for teachers to effectively engage.

This is not meant to denigrate the posters in this thread, but I get the sense that most a) are different than the average student and b) have not been teachers. The second point in particular is important because people who have faced the challenges teachers face may have domain knowledge that non-teachers lack.

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.

[1] http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360131512...

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 attending because you might spring a surprise announcement or pop quiz on them, will be there to pay attention.

If I chose to spend thousands of dollars so I can goof off during a lecture, that's my prerogative. I don't need some to dictate what's in my best interest.

My PowerBook was a huge boon for me in college. I write far better notes with a laptop than with pen and paper. What's more, I was able to multitask in ways that are simply impossible without a computer. If I were to encounter a teacher arrogant enough to ban laptops from his presence, I would simply refuse to take any of his classes, even if they were mandatory. I would literally chose another school before leaving my laptop at home.

> We still haven’t made it easy to type notation-laden sentences, so the potential benefits were low.

Really? I found it fairly easy to type out full equations in LaTeX using LyX. Maybe the laptop isn't the problem, but that you only introduce your students to the most basic of word processors.

I am serious about it. Students are going to live and work with Internet and all distractions. They need this ability that like others it is learned and nurtured.

I mean, something like this: http://www.lynda.com/Business-Business-Skills-tutorials/Gett...

There are lots of good programs out there. Today this knowledge is as important as Mathematics. Probably more important for some people.

I have studied a lot in order to be able to work productively from home. It is very easy once you know lots of little things.

I could scientifically proof to any person how much she destroys her productivity just multitasking, using very simple things, like video cameras(which everybody has in her phone) and paper, because I have studied the psychology that fools ourselves into believing we could watch facebook and a lecture at the same time.

In my experience teaching people this works wonders. Without it, they are lost. They want something(get good grades, work with less effort), but they don't know how to do it.

About a programming class without computers, I will fire the teacher whose idea is banning laptops instantly. I am engineer and program computers for a living, with experience teaching people. They are incompetent if they can't control students with computers. If they are so boring the students prefer to browse Internet in class, then the problem is the teacher, not the student.

Sometimes I have paid for not listening to the lecture but the majority of the time it doesn't matter. The idea that I learned my college curriculum in lectures would be a joke. As a computer science student I learnt my trade in the labs and tutorials and interactive courses rarely from listening to a lecturer explain X, Y or Z.

The better the lecturer or the harder the module the more laptops that were closed in my lectures. My compiler design course for example, infamous for being the most difficult module no one dared open the laptop as there was too much knowledge to consume.

Lecturers can easily do a self-assessment survey of how engaged their class is and how interestingly they are presenting their material but how many heads are hidden behind laptop screens.

For the one lecturer who did ban laptops I have to say I went to absolutely none of his lectures unless I had coursework to submit. I found it a bit presumptuous that he could demand I close my laptop, I was not distracting him or disturbing the class.

You don't learn in lectures where lecturers read their slides to you laptop open or not. If the lecturers are going to waste my time with pointless reading of slides then I might as well do something useful on my laptop like my coursework or just read hacker news.

http://squatrx.blogspot.com/2008/12/being-present.html

Multi-tasking seems to be the way most people nowadays operate, but it doesn't mean people are doing a better job at more things. It means they are addicted to multi-tasking and they are incapable of actually being present for longer than a few moments. Perhaps these people are better at transitioning from one thing to the next, but I wonder if that applies to disparate tasks - my guess is that it doesn't transfer itself particularly well to new, complex skills.

Being able to say "no" to distraction is crucial to the ability to be "in the present". This isn't license to be an a-hole of course, just permission to say to yourself "I have many things I need to do, but I'm going to focus on this ONE THING right now".

I did not give two shits about the lectures; the material is presented better in the book. Professors, from my perspective, were paid to administer tests.

I'm not denying that I am hopelessly old and outdated, but reading the article on Technology Needs for School District (May 15, 2014) literally made me cry; for two reasons. First, because the people who are in charge of education are actually going to do it, and second, that the Livingston parent community is so enthusiastic about it.

There is no doubt that computers are useful and that the Internet gives access to such a scope of information so quickly that is not available nor accessible through any other means. But how do they impact children's overall DEVELOPMENT? How do they impact their attention? With the pandemic of Attention Deficit Disorder, how can we be so blind not to notice the connection between children's attention span and the time they spend on the computer? I started teaching piano more than 30 years ago. EVERY child was capable to remember which note he had to play, with which finger, how to hold the finger and whether he had to play long or short, loud or soft - simultaneously. Now it is typical that when a child pays attention to what note it is, he does not notice which finger; if he remembers the finger – does not notice how loud, etc. I rarely see children that can actually focus on the task for longer than 20 seconds. I often ask parents, “How much time does your child spend on the computer?” The connection is direct: the less time on computer – the better the student's focus, the longer she can concentrate on the assignment. I happened to teach an elderly lady who brought a music book with her teacher's remarks dated 1958. She was nervous, “Will you quit on me? I forgot everything.” I answered (only half-jokingly), “Of course not, you are my only student with a normal attention span!”

Even though I observe 400+ students in my music school, can it be just coincidence? What does the beloved Internet tell us about the impact of computer use has on the brain? Nothing encouraging. As an example, there is a student work in biology (http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/node/336, 2007) that summarizes finding on the topic. It states what I suspected: computers often conflict with the activities that are needed for one to develop the ability to pay attention; the list of scientific works is attached there. And if you still like long books, N. Carr addresses the issue in his “The Shallows: What Internet is Doing to Our Brains.”

What are we doing? Are we trying to compensate for having poor teachers with technology? Why do we adhere to such a naive belief that computers are the solution to problems in schools, thinking that “the more of them - the better” automatically? Maybe it's better to invest in teachers' training? Maybe we need to raise the prestige of the teaching profession? I participated in a “professional orientation” day in LHS several years ago. Seniors had an opportunity to meet with representatives of their prospective field. I saw crowds of seniors following “Lawyers” and “Accountants”. In the “Teachers” room, a retired Harrison school teacher and myself, who were assigned to lead the meeting, found 4 or 5 girls. Only one of them really wanted to be a teacher, knew what is involved and why she wanted it. Everyone else said, “I do not know”, “I am not sure”.. . Why do we expect our children will be enthusiastic about learning if teachers themselves “do not know”?.. And how computers can help?

The more that children use computers, the less opportunities they have for human interaction. 
By increasing the role of computers in children's lives we bend human nature, we consciously under-develop the younger generation; we deprive our children of full development of their communication skills, ability to build relationships, and their creativity. We are raising USERS, not CREATORS. We are increasing the distance between those who are capable to make discoveries and those who can chose from pre-made options; between people who can see the beauty of the world and those for whom the world is limited by the rectangle of the screen.