A colleague of mine recently published this op-ed in the Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/06/AR200704 0601544.html He describes his reasons for banning his first-year students from bringing laptops to class (they go into "stenographic mode", or they surf and check e-mail, which distracts other students and detracts from the learning experience). He reports that his students reacted positively to the experiment (some of my own reacted quite negatively when I mentioned they idea, but they were upper-years who had self-selected to study IP/technology law). He has also begun campaigning to have us modify our wireless network so that it is turned "off" in classrooms during class time and/or to modify our entire network to disable students' university e-mail and web accounts during the hours that they're listed as being signed up for class. I was surprised to learn this, but apparently the U. of Michigan law school has done both of these things and some other law schools are considering it. In the ensuing debate, many colleagues cited what I think are some very good reasons not to do the last two things, including: missed pedagogical opportunities (both re use of the Internet for on-the-fly research as subjects come up in class and re ethics of networked technology use), cost, inequality as between students who use only our network and students who can access other available wireless networks via commercial accounts, and excessive paternalism. Now that the semester has ended, I expect the subject to come up again, and I thought I would see what members of this list think. Most specifically, I'm wondering (1) what you all say to colleagues who react to laptops and wired classrooms in this way; and (2) techniques that you use to encourage students to think about their own responsibilities re networked technology usage. Thanks, Julie