I have not done any research on laptops in classrooms but I have had two undergraduate student groups study this topic. They have found that students lose track of what is being said in lecture when they get involved in interactions with friends on IM or they play games or do homework for other classes. These are not activities that lend themselves to keeping an ear open for the important bits of the lecture. The students also reported that 50% of the students said they would not bring a laptop to class if there were no wireless access. This wireless access is for games, etc. not looking up what the professor is talking about. An important issue I have not heard mentioned is that the presence of other activities in the classroom -- activities that require attention and separate the student from the classroom -- changes the culture of the classroom as a whole. Students are not engaged with each other in the same way. They are no longer a "body" of students but individuals selecting their own activities, virtually leaving the classroom. It's a subtle but pervasive effect. Students who need help with English can make a special arrangement to text a friend or they can bring unobtrusive dictionary devices (one of my students has one). See also Gay and Hembrooke's Activity-Centered Design. There's a good chapter on wireless in the classroom there. -- Bonnie On May 18, 2007, at 6:49 PM, Matthew Bernius wrote:
I come at this issue from both side: as a PhD student (at Cornell) and as professor teaching undergraduate classes (at RIT, btw, so I'm pretty familiar with the scenario Alex laid out).
Next year I will be banning cell phone, ipods, etc. in my undergraduate classes. Laptops will be allowed for specific assignments, but otherwise not to be used as well (especially in Freshman classes). This ban extends to myself as well (unless unavoidable, I'm going to rely on lecturing and white boards -- no more ppt). As Alex suggested, my biggest issue with laptops is the distraction that they cause to other students. Geyond that (and outside of lab activities), I am increasingly coming to the belief that they present a barrier to students developing certain skills that will, down the road, better allow those students to use those same devices. And, at least for a school like RIT, that prides itself on preparing it's students for the workplace, basic technology etiquette needs to be stressed. The sad fact is that a lot of the technology behavior I've seen isn't appropriate for the workplace.
As far as upper level undergrads, depending on the class makeup, I may allow it. But right now I'm more concerned about raising physical engagement rather than passively encouraging virtual engagement.
Now for the possible hypocrisy -- I fully intend to use a laptop to take notes when I attend class. That said, if a prof doesn't allow it, I won't mind. And I'm confident that I'm at a point where I can use the laptop responsibly.
- Matt
-- ----------------------------- Matthew Bernius New Media and Customer Intelligence Strategist for Hire mBernius@gMail.com http://www.waking-dream.com _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Bonnie A. Nardi Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences University of California, Irvine Irvine, CA 92697-3440 (949) 824-6534 www.artifex.org/~bonnie/