Ryan Byrd’s Ramblings

Talk of the Nations on NPR today interviewed Georgetown University law professor David Cole on his decision to ban laptops from his classroom. David wrote an op-ed piece for the Washington Post on Saturday describing the circumstances and effects of his no-laptop policy.

Says David,

Note-taking on a laptop encourages verbatim transcription. The note-taker tends to go into stenographic mode and no longer processes information in a way that is conducive to the give and take of classroom discussion. Because taking notes the old-fashioned way, by hand, is so much slower, one actually has to listen, think and prioritize the most important themes.

and,

In addition, laptops create temptation to surf the Web, check e-mail, shop for shoes or instant-message friends. That’s not only distracting to the student who is checking Red Sox statistics but for all those who see him, and many others, doing something besides being involved in class.

To back this up David states

95 percent admitted that they use their laptops in class for “purposes other than taking notes, such as surfing the Web, checking e-mail, instant messaging and the like.” Ninety-eight percent reported seeing fellow students do the same.

The results for David’s classroom experiment? according to an anonymous survey he conducted six weeks into the semester:

About 80 percent reported that they are more engaged in class discussion when they are laptop-free. Seventy percent said that, on balance, they liked the no-laptop policy.

At the University of Utah, where I have been an MBA student for the past two and 1/2 years, laptops are required for all students and are therefore seen in nearly every class. Recently however, a few teachers have asked us to shut them down after the end of classroom administrivia (assignments, announcements, scheduling etc) which is about 15 minutes into class.

Initially I was irked at this change. Though, shifting perspective, when teaching at UVSC I’ve had to teach students who had laptops open and I can attest how annoying that is from the professor’s point of view. It isn’t uncommon to have to repeat a question in order to get a response from the distracted students. Of course, for you non-academics, the immediate parallel to the classroom setting is in company meetings and that brings us to the question of the day, Should laptops be banned from company meetings?

I’ll summarize some more arguments for and against laptop bans in classes/meetings.

For the Ban

• Class time is for discussion and listening, not transcription of notes from professor to student. Professors should provide class notes.
• Laptops are the equivalent of taking a “bookshelf, mailbox, newspapers and a board game” to class, as such they are major distractions.
• “Doing five things at once on the laptop, students miss out on the unique educational experience of college, where the student’s sole responsibility is to learn as much as possible.”^*
• Something about writing notes forces the brain to work and results in better comprehension.

Against the Ban

• Banning laptops just means the added annoyance of typing class notes after class.
• Students are able to contribute better to class discussion by bringing in material from the web
• Some students have illegible handwriting, so hand writing notes doesn’t work.
• Some jobs require students to be online and available over IM.
• Just disable the local wireless to prevent people from surfing.
• Some classes are highly technical in nature and not discussion-centric. Students need to be able to take down what the teacher says verbatim.
• We have technology, we should be using it?
• Why require laptops only to ban them?
• College students are adults and are mature enough to make their own decisions about such matters.

What do you think?!?